Deprecation campaign

[martinko]

Mark Linimon wrote:
> For those that want to see the state of all this, you can check out
> the following URL:
>
>    http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portsconcordancefordeprecated.py
>
> In particular, the "interesting" entries for you may be the unmaintained
> ports (e.g. maintainer = "ports at FreeBSD.org".)   In some of the other
> cases, the maintainer had already asked for the port to be deprecated
> (e.g. obsolete versions of databases/postgresql, dns/bind,
> emulators/linux_base, etc.)
>
> If you find that any of the ports on this list are ports that you use at
> your site, please consider taking them over as maintainer.  This would
> help FreeBSD out.
>
> fwiw, an email version of this will go out on the 21st via a cronjob.
>
> Thanks.
>
> mcl


I understand you want to remove a port if it does not build and there is 
no one (in long time) to fix it.  However, deprecating because a dist 
file moved, while port may be perfectly functional, seems a bit too 
much, imho.  I've just glanced at the list linked above and I've noticed 
a few ports I've used in (not that distant) past.  So I believe there 
are still users of them out there.  So why would we deny them using the 
ports if all it takes is publishing the port files somewhere ?  And 
since FreeBSD has the infrastructure and resources I see no issue in 
providing parking for such distfiles, especially if we believe they are 
used by minority of users.  Or is there something I miss here ?

With regards,

Martin