using svn to fetch for ports (yet again!)

[Brooks Davis]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 08:23:02PM +0200, Eitan Adler wrote:
> I have a small patch to bsd.port.mk which would allow a port to
> replace its do-fetch with a svn export of a /specific revision/ of a
> remote repo.
> 
> I know there have been some attempts at trying this before and from
> what I've been reading I addressed some of the major concerns:
> 1) Past attempts didn't include a basic implementation.
> 2) Past attempts didn't allow for a specific revision number and thus
> possibly causing security issues
> 3) Subversion does not have to be part of the base system for my patch to work
> 
> Allowing the port to fetch from svn is beneficial for a number of
> reasons some of which are listed below
> 1) Many project's only or main means of distribution is svn (I'm
> thinking of mplayer)
> 2) It is easier for the port maintainer to update the port
> 3) It is easy for a user to quickly switch versions (outside of the
> ports system) without the need for lots o knowledge about the ports
> system
> 
> Some of the problems:
> 1) Its harder if not impossible for freeBSD to mirror the port's
> source (I'm sure I could easily code a svn-to-tarball script but who
> knows if the svn build servers want svn)
> 2) Many users may want the program they are installing but not svn
> 3) What about SCM's other than svn?

I'd much rather see this used as something that reduced the amount of
code required for maintainers to build tarballs from SVN.  For example
something similar in spirit to what I've done in devel/llvm-devel.  That
means mirroring or otherwise transfering the source around is possible.

There will likely be some objections to putting maintainer functionality
in bsd.port.mk, but I think it would be useful enough in this case.
Alternativly we could formalize the process a bit and put something
Tools/scripts.

-- Brooks
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