Re-engineering the port system (was Re: duration of the ports freeze)

[Aryeh M. Friedman]

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Erik Trulsson wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 11:49:11AM -0800, 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.
>
> I am quite certain that I am not alone or even unusual in not
> having a problem with the current situation.  I believe that for
> the majority of FreeBSD users the port freezes do not constitue a
> major problem - or even a problem at all.

First of all I am not in the least inconvenienced by the freeze as a
user because I just ask maintainers for yet to be committed ports to
send me the needed files.   My issue is the lack of longterm
scalability of the system (some people say n years away where n>10...
I am not convinced we should look at the actual curve before making
any guesses).
>
> The current situation apparently constitute a problem for you,
> which is too bad, but you have failed to convince me that you are
> representative for more than a very small minority of FreeBSD users
> - and it is of course not possible to satisfy everybody.  (And it
> is anyway not me you need to convince, since I have no official
> standing at all in the FreeBSD project.)

I don't know about David but there is no issue for me beyond having to
wait like everyone else but being involved with large system creation
I understand the need.
>
> As for your earlier claims that the process is developer-centric
> rather than user-centric, I would say that claim is just plain
> wrong. If anything I would say the code-freezes of both the base
> system and the ports tree is more inconvenient for the FreeBSD
> committers and port mainttainers than for the average user. The
> intent is to make sure each release is in good shape, in the belief
> that this is what is most important for the average user (from
> which follows that the state of the ports tree between releases is
> of somewhat lesser importance.)  This belief might of course be
> wrong, but so far little evidence has been given to contradict it.

Like I said in a different subthread this is a problem that has been
addressed theortically for a number of years.
>
>
> It is disappointing to hear arguments to change simply because one
> particular individual is disadvantaged by the current situation,
> without any regard given to the fact that such a change might
> actually inconvenience a larger number of people.
>

Thats why I changed the subject because it is clear to me at least
none of the issues being discussed have anything to do with the
current freeze.


- --
Aryeh M. Friedman
FloSoft Systems
Developer, not business, friendly
http://www.flosoft-systems.com
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