duration of the ports freeze

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith]

On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, David Southwell wrote:

> On Saturday 01 December 2007 10:28:40 Erik Trulsson wrote:
>> Personally, as a user, I have never really been even slightly inconvienced
>> by any of the ports tree freezes.
>
> All I can say is bully for you! The question is how do we get rid of a
> p[roblem even if it is not a disadvantage for you personally. It is
> disappointing when one hears arguments not to change simply because one
> particular individual is not disadvantaged by a currently illogical and
> antiquated solution to a problem that will inevitably grow as the number of
> ports increase.
>
> We need to grasp the nettle while we may!!

I think that you and Aryeh are not getting that it is not just "bully for 
you."  There is a major effort required to change the way we do ports. 
Even if the current system has some imperfections, you have to persuade 
the FreeBSD community that the benfits of fixing things are greater than 
the costs.

My personal assessment is that now is NOT the time to grap the nettle. 
Over time the ports system will acquire more and more problems, until 
perhaps in ten or twenty years time it will be unusable.  Then it will be 
time to fix it, when we have a clearer picture of what all the problems 
really are.  Or maybe by then things will have happened that make this 
whole issue moot.  I just don't think it is worth the effort to fix this 
problem now, especially when the benefits will only be to a few power 
users.

Look, its good that you feel the freedom to complain, and advocate for 
change.  But don't get upset when others say they like the status 
quo.  They need to have freedom to say their piece too.

Stephen