Port Submission Etiquette

[Sahil Tandon]

* Beech Rintoul <beech at freebsd.org> [2008-05-06 19:07:57 -0800]:

> On Tuesday 06 May 2008, Sahil Tandon said:
> > I would like to submit a new port which "RUN_DEPENDS" another port;
> > the latter did not exist in the tree, so I submitted it
> > (ports/123382) on May 4. I fully appreciate the committers' various
> > responsibilities and time constraints, so this is not a 'hey,
> > what's taking you so long' query.  Since this was my first
> > submission, I am just trying to get a sense of proper etiquette. 
> > Is it bad form to email the committer who took responsibility of
> > the PR asking whether I've made a glaring mistake which would be
> > fixable via a follow-up?  Or should I simply wait for a "feedback"
> > request if that were the case?
> >
> > Thanks.
> 
> Since I'm the committer in question, I'll go ahead and answer. First 
> of all you just submitted this port two days ago and I haven't had 
> time to look at it yet. While it's always ok to email the committer 
> responsible with questions or concerns, the general rule is to give 
> them time to work on it. Most committers are fairly prompt in their 
> handling of pr's, but since we are all volunteers sometimes real life 
> issues supersede. I think giving the committer a couple of weeks 
> before following up is probably a good idea. Also, in general, new 
> ports don't carry the same priority as fixes or updates, but that 
> doesn't maen they should languish indefinately either. As 
> for "glaring mistakes" if I find a serious problem with a port I will 
> always email the submitter with either a fix or asking for further 
> input. While there is no set policy on this, most committers will let 
> you know if something isn't right or the port doesn't build. So 
> please be patient and I will get to it as soon as I can.
> 
> Hope that answers your question :-)

It does, thank you; and as I tried (perhaps insufficiently) to convey in my 
previous message, I do appreciate that the FreeBSD community is comprised of 
volunteers.  I would hope real life always supersedes. :-)  I noticed my 
trivial patch was committed swiftly, so your comment about (logical) 
priorities rings true.  

-- 
Sahil Tandon <sahil at tandon.net>