Port system "problems"

[Niclas Zeising]

On 06/26/12 00:22, Florent Peterschmitt wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm not a developer and I know how it's difficult to make a port (or
> some ports, for example VirtualBox) but I think the port system has many
> "problems":
>
> 1. Ports are not modular
> 2. Option system is not really well documented
> 3. Some dependencies are totally useless
> 4. So slow...
>
> Let me give some examples:
>
> 2. Why do we have to put WITH_NEW_XORG in /etc/make.conf to get it ? Why
> not put this var in a port configuration file which will be read by all
> ports needing this var ?

I can't answer for the rest, but in this case, up until recently the 
base system code for the new xorg version was in a separate development 
patch, hence the WITH_NEW_XORG and the related base system code was 
highly experimental.  Those who wanted to help, knew of this, and as 
such could set this variable in /etc/make.conf, the majority of people 
did not need be concerned with this.  Now the GEM/KMS bits (the needed 
base system code) is in the base system, and there is discussion on how 
to best proceed with the two different versions of xorg we have.  Untill 
a viable solution is found, however, the current way remains.
Regarding /etc/make.conf, this is the configuration file which governs 
how make operates, where better to put this make variable?
Regards!
-- 
Niclas Zeising