Unfetchable distfiles reminder

[Paul Schmehl]

Bill Fenner wrote:
> Dear porters,
> 
>   This is just a reminder to please periodically check the list of
> unfetchable distfiles at http://people.freebsd.org/~fenner/portsurvey/ .
> In particular, the list of ports with no MAINTAINER with distfile
> problems, which currently has 203 bad ports, is
> 
> http://people.freebsd.org/~fenner/portsurvey/ports@freebsd.org.html
> 
Rather than a list of ports with unfectchable distfiles and no 
maintainer, this appears to be a list of every port.

Is the link incorrect?  Or am I doing something wrong?

> Since no one is responsible for these ports, the problem won't get
> fixed unless someone on this list takes the initiative.
> 
>   In addition, the list of all ports with any unfetchable distfile is
> 
> http://people.freebsd.org/~fenner/portsurvey/bad.html
> 
I tackled a few of these yesterday, but all of them had maintainers.  (I 
did seven, but one turned out to have already been done.)  Some of them 
were pretty simple.  Some I declined to do because they required 
extensive patching.  Are maintainers notified when their ports don't work?

I'd rather tackle ones without a maintainer, if I can get a valid list. 
  If the port doesn't have a maintainer and the software is no longer 
available (I used both Google and searching around at the master site to 
try and locate where the software had moved to), what should we do? 
Mark the port as DEPRECATED and let the committers decide on an 
EXPIRATION DATE?

-- 
Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/
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