ports-system priorities rant (Re: sysutils/cfs)

[Mikhail T.]

On -10.01.-28163 14:59, Doug Barton wrote:
> Non sequitur. The large number of ports that we support IS a feature. However, 
> it's also a pretty big maintenance burden. Especially when you consider the 
> number of those ports that are either actually or effectively unmaintained.

Support? What support? Can I call someone and have a solution to a problem? Some 
PRs remain open for years and any attempts to escalate are met with "patches 
welcome" -- I've been on both sides myself :-)

We do not offer support, make no promises of such and offer neither guarantees 
nor SLAs. What we do offer is: "THERE IS A PORT OF IT". If there is a piece of 
software out there, chances are, it is ported to FreeBSD. Even if the existing 
port is imperfect, it is a starting point for somebody, who needs that software 
on their system.

With every port removed, that promise wears thinner and thinner...

> Maintaining a high level of actual support for the ports tree is the goal here.

Without paid contracts talk of "high level actual support" is meaningless. Both 
src and ports are maintained by people, to whom software-development and 
engineering is FUN. Support is not fun -- it is a burden. A burden we undertake 
(you, perhaps, more than others), but do not like...

> In the near term future we're also hoping to provide some new, better tools; 
> as well as better/more consistent package support. In order to do those things 
> we need to make sure that we're putting our effort where it is most needed.

This is great, but:

 1. I don't see, how the sliver of removed ports, actually, helps you there.
 2. In the past "consistent package support" used to conflict with the loose
    building from source (recall the ongoing problem with major shlib numbers
    bogusly included in most LIB_DEPENDS lines).

Having to deal with RedHat's yum at work, I got to say, I'd rather be building 
from source, than installing from "consistent packages", that somebody else 
built *to their* tastes. Also, having to provide "high level support" for those 
packages limits their number. No, I don't want FreeBSD to go in that direction 
at all. Let RedHat cater to that market :-)

To rephrase: your opinion seems to be: let's provide better support to fewer 
ports. I say, that's misguided -- you will not be able to significantly improve 
the support quality, even if you do remove the niche ports from the tree. But 
the removal will in itself be harmful...

Yours,

    -mi