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

Julian H. Stacey jhs at berklix.com
Fri Sep 9 01:01:30 UTC 2011


Matthias Andree wrote:
> Am 08.09.2011 16:15, schrieb Mikhail T.:
> 
> > Having a poor port of an obscure
> > piece of software is better, than no port at all. 
> 
> A poor port is undesirable (and shouldn't be in the tree in the first
> place).

Wrong.
A `poor' port is is still a port else it would be marked Broken.
Still a lot less work to polish than writing a port from scratch.
Still a damn sight more use to non programmers than no port.
Maybe it might just need a bit more work to speify more depends,
but still be working anyway.


> An obscure piece of software is undesirable (and shouldn't be ported in
> the first place).

Rubbish!


> Now guess what a poor port of an obscure piece of software is.

Something that's still useful cos with it a non programmer has
something that will work right now, with a MAINTAINER address he
can contact & be told "Encourage me & I'll improve it & send
omprovements to FreeBSD too" 


> We're not there to run a museum of horrors, and we're not the starting
> point or sole provider of such software.  In fact we should not even
> attempt to do that.  People interested in that obscure software can
> either help themselves without a port, can organize the necessary
> assistance, or should not be running it.

BSD has a history of more niche/ mature/ specialist/ users & uses.
If you want Linux, use Linux

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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