New port with maintainer ports@FreeBSD.org [was: Question about maintainers]

[Frank Mayhar]

Paul Schmehl wrote:
>> I _certainly_ think that a port submitted with a maintainer of
>> 'ports at freebsd.org' should hit the bit bucket immediately and never see
>> the light of day.  If it's important enough to submit, it should be
>> important enough to maintain.
>[Tale of woe elided; if you want to read it, it's in the archives.]

First off, this is commonly referred to as "biting off more than you can 
chew."  Perhaps you should have chosen something a little smaller as your 
first port?

It is certainly acceptable for someone to put together a "port" that is 
good enough for internal use without ever bringing it up to port-quality 
for submission.  I have done that several times with various packages that 
weren't worth my time to fully port-ize.  From time to time I have also 
submitted patches to an existing port in order to fix it so that I can use 
it as a dependency for something of mine.

> Now I've finally created ports for the sensor and server portions of 
> sguild, and I'm working on the client portion.  If FreeBSD adopts the 
> policy you suggest in your last paragraph, hat would me that I would 
> *also* have to take over maintainence for the following ports: tcl, 
> itcl, tk and iwidgets.

Let's look at what I wrote in my "last paragraph."  I said:

	I _certainly_ think that a port submitted with a maintainer of
	'ports at freebsd.org' should hit the bit bucket immediately and
	never see the light of day.  If it's important enough to submit,
	it should be important enough to maintain.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but tcl, itcl, tk and iwidgets were already in 
ports, were they not?  So they could not possibly have been "submitted with 
a maintainer of 'ports at freebsd.org.'"  Of course, this is not to say that 
you should not have been the stuckee for those ports.  If you learned 
enough to update them, you probably learned enough to continue to maintain 
them.  (You may not have had the _time_ to maintain them, but that's an 
entirely different issue.)

Quite honestly, if you were to feel intimidated, that's _your_ problem.  If 
you feel too intimidated to take something on, then don't do so, but also 
don't complain that it hasn't been addressed.

In short, this isn't Linux.  The people here are professionals and expect 
at least a certain amount of professionalism from the others on the 
project.  This is, in my opinion also being a professional, a reasonable 
expectation.

> If we adopted your suggestion, there would be no port for sguil, because 
> I never would have taken it on.  I would have given up.  And that means 
> there would also be no port for barnyard, and no port for sancp.
> 
> Is that what you want?

Believe me, that situation would have been preferable the content of this 
thread.  As far as the package itself is concerned, I honestly don't care. 
  If I _did_ care, though, I would do something about it, either privately 
or in public, and I would do my damnedest to adhere to professional 
standards.  I wouldn't whine about how doing it right is too "intimidating."

Ultimately, this is a tempest in a teapot.  If you can't maintain those 
ports, you can't, and no amount of browbeating is going to change that.  On 
the other hand, don't expect the FreeBSD folks to change their policy just 
to make you feel better.
-- 
Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com	http://www.exit.com/
Exit Consulting                 http://www.gpsclock.com/
                                 http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/