Updating curl

[Bernhard Fröhlich]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:10:25 +0100
> olli hauer articulated:
>
> [snip}
>
>> Just a quick question.
>> How many ports do you maintain?
>
> Three, very simple ports.
>
>> I have to ask this question because it looks like you are always
>> coming up with the same copy pasted text snippets (do you have them
>> as text blocks in vim or emacs?)
>
> I have never created a boilerplate if that is what you are referring to.
>
>> If you are willing to do the maintenance of an actual curl port please
>> come up with an patch and request maintainer ship.
>
> I am actually thinking about updating curl on my system and no I would
> not release it since I am (1) not the maintain of said port, and (2) I
> don't have the time to actively maintain it. Which brings us back to my
> original statement, that being that if the current maintainer is not
> going to properly maintain the port than they should publicly state
> that fact which would allow another individual with sufficient time and
> skill to do so.
>
> If you remember a few months ago, there was a discussion as to why
> "Bash" lingered on for months, actually a year, with numerous patches
> being issued by the Bash author yet never being included in the port's
> system. Finally, another user created a "devel" port. Perhaps that is
> the proper way to handle this problem. "Postfix", probably the best
> maintained port in the entire system. has both a "stable" release and a
> "current" release in the ports system. I will agree that
> "sahil at FreeBSD.org" is probably an over achiever, but it is an example
> of what can be accomplished, and in virtual real time no less, when
> someone dedicates themselves to a task.

Sorry, but that is the absolutely wrong approach. The way it works is by
contributing not by keeping stuff in your hands and telling other that they
should come up with a solution.
If a port maintainer is unavailable for some time and unable to update the
port himself then it would be the best way to contact him if he has
something that you can help with. If he does not respond prepare an
update yourself, test it and verify that it works fine and then submit the
patch as PR. Then some committer will have a look and either the
maintainer approves it or it becomes a maintainer timeout and after that
the patch is committed.

If you talk to the maintainer and he feels that you already care more
about the port than he does I'm pretty sure he will offer to pass
maintainership to you. If a maintainer is unavailable for a longer period
(multiple maintainer timeouts) then the port maintainer will be reset
anyway and can be adopted.

-- 
Bernhard Froehlich
http://www.bluelife.at/