Problems with USE_AUTOMAKE_VER variable

[Craig Rodrigues]

On Sun, Apr 04, 2004 at 04:11:28PM +0400, Sergey Matveychuk wrote:
> Just ade makes a bad reputation for all commiters :(

Well everyone makes mistakes once in a while, and I make mistakes
too, so let's not single out ade@ for this.
My main complaint is the lack of keeping the port maintainer (me)
in the loop.

I am also disappointed by the slightly elitist attitude that
I am getting on the ports@ mailing list which is basically:
"We committers know better than you (port maintainer) what to do, and we
 can make all sorts of commits to a port without keeping
 the port maintainer informed because:
     (1) these commits are minor, and we have a commit bit so we can do it
     (2) it is too much work to send out an e-mail to the port maintainer,
         because there are too many ports and too many e-mails to send out"


I don't have a problem with (1), but I feel that (2) is bogus.  Keeping
port maintainers in the loop serves two purposes:
 - politely keeps port maintainer informed about the status of a port
 - educates port maintainer about the intricacies of the ports Makefile
   system, and makes the person a better port maintainer

The only time I feel that sending out an e-mail is too much overhead
is if the MAINTAINER = ports at freebsd.org

If no one agrees with my points, then I am going to request two things:

-> If anybody commits anything to the devel/apr port, let me know via
   e-mail, just as a matter of courtesy
   (no matter how trivial the change)

-> Can someone add the following information to the Porters Handbook.
   In order for a port maintainer to keep informed about potential
   changes to a port:

     -> Porters need to read /usr/ports/CHANGES regularly to keep up to 
        date with changes in the ports Makefile system.
     -> Porters need to subscribe to freshports.org and add their
        ports to the watch list.

The more of this stuff you guys can document for porters, the better.
 
-- 
Craig Rodrigues        
http://crodrigues.org
rodrigc at crodrigues.org