Can we please just remove the old Makefile headers?

[Julian H. Stacey]

Hi,
Reference:
> From:		Bryan Drewery <bryan at shatow.net> 
> Date:		Mon, 27 Aug 2012 08:02:15 -0500 
> Message-id:	<503B6FD7.4060100 at shatow.net> 

Bryan Drewery wrote:
> On 8/27/2012 7:40 AM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> > Brooks Davis wrote:
> >> On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 02:02:47PM -0700, Doug Barton wrote:
> >>> The old Makefile headers, ala:
> >>> =20
> >>> # New ports collection makefile for:    BIND 9.9.x
> >>> # Date created:                         27 January 2012
> >>> # Whom:                                 dougb
> >>> #
> >>> # $FreeBSD: head/dns/bind99/Makefile 301487 2012-07-24 19:23:23Z dougb $
> >>> =20
> >>> have not served a purpose for longer than almost anyone who has a ports
> >>> commit bit has been around. My proposal is simple, let's remove
> >>> everything before the # $FreeBSD$.
> >>> =20
> >>> In the past when this has been proposed the objection was that it would
> >>> cause too much churn. If we had done this back when we had 5,000 ports
> >>> then we would have solved the problem with less churn, and no drama for
> >>> the 15,000 ports that followed. Every day we don't do this we make the
> >>> "churn" problem worse, and deepen the roots of something that has no
> >>> relevance.
> >>> =20
> >>> Can we please just deal with this now and be done with it? ... and yes,
> >>> I am volunteering to help with and/or do the work myself.
> >>
> >> Yes please!  We've got a nice repository that stores all the data in
> >> question much more accurately than a silly header.
> >>
> >> -- Brooks
> > 
> > 
> > The example from original post of dns/bind99 is rather new, 
> > 
> >> # New ports collection makefile for:    BIND 9.9.x
> >> # Date created:                         27 January 2012
> >> # Whom:                                 dougb
> >> #
> >> # $FreeBSD: head/dns/bind99/Makefile 301487 2012-07-24 19:23:23Z dougb $
> > 
> > 
> > An older Makefile where "MAINTAINER=" evolved to no longer repeat "Whom:"
> > 
> > # ports collection makefile for:        hylafax
> > # Date created:         16 May 1995
> > # Whom:                 Julian Stacey <jhs at freebsd.org>
> > #
> > # $FreeBSD: ports/comms/hylafax/Makefile,v 1.101 2010/09/19 12:04:42 dinoex Exp $
> > ....
> > MAINTAINER=     dinoex at FreeBSD.org
> > 
> > 
> > Yes, first line seem disposable, repeating info in PORTNAME PORTVERSION
> > 	# ports collection makefile for:	hylafax
> > 	# New ports collection makefile for:    BIND 9.9.x
> > 
> > But Whom & Date are useful on occasion.
> >   On various other older ports, when I couldnt get response in time
> >   from MAINTAINER (I don't mean re hylafax), perhaps maintainer on
> >   holiday, & I couldn't wait for send-pr tiem out, & didnt want to
> >   invoke send-pr, I fell back succesfully, to contacting the Whom:
> >   creator, who while no longer regularly motivated to do maintenance,
> >   could respond without delay & give hints (fallback maintainer).
> 
> I know several ports where this is the opposite of what the submitter
> wants. They've long moved on and do not want to be bothered. Plus it
> only adds to frustration to the reporter, who is sending a *2nd* email
> to a *2nd* person who may not respond.

Yes, allow Whom: to request his/her Human name &/or email address be deleted.


> >   I presume some other users do that too, but we'd not see evidence
> >   if people chose not to use send-pr (often a good thing to omit
> >   initialy, eg when one isnt sure if one has a local mistake or
> >   misunderstanding, or if there's a generic bug.)
> > 
> > Hiding Whom in meta data would be bad:
> >   Within a cvs or svn would make it much harder to access. ports.tgz
> >   comes on CDs etc, all get it.  Less people have cvs, less still
> >   svn, less svn mirrors, less people (outside commiters) will be
> >   experienced/familiar with svn compared to cvs.
> 
> You can easily look on freshports.

I just use what's under freebsd.org domain & (CTM) feeds of src
ports cvs (& now svn).  I've never looked much at Me-Too-For-A-BSD-domains
eg PCBSD freshports etc.  I guessed freshports.org, checked & got
xants type spider gimmick in browser, so closed browser.


> >   Some ports are easy to create, eg my lang/pbasic, but some are
> >   hard, (eg I'd guess editors/openoffice-3 may have been, One might ask 
> >   	# Whom:                 Martin Blapp
> >   comms/hylafax was a lot of work (whatever might show in Makefile,
> >   getting run time interfaces sorted was Work).
> > 
> >   Let ports creators retain their one line of credit.  Removing it
> >   would save little & be ungrateful, like removing names out of .c
> >   & .h.  (Some (inc. me) may like noticing in passing who created
> >   the ports one's working on)).  The credit may encourage some ports
> >   creators to struggle on, creating sometimes obdurate complex ports
> >   one might otherwise be tempted to give up on after a not-yet-port
> >   is just hand built & hand tested localy,
> 
> I actually agree fully with keeping their line of credit. But I disagree
> that we should not remove or modify their email address on request from
> them.

I always assumed we allowed update & deletion of Whom: via send-pr.
both of human names (which may vary, eg on marriage) &/or email addresses
(I guess many use long term stable addresses to reduce edit load).

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