FreeBSD ports which are currently scheduled for deletion

[Big Lebowski]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Tijl Coosemans <tijl at coosemans.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 08 Apr 2014 13:12:48 -0400 Mikhail T. wrote:
> > On 08.04.2014 12:55, Tijl Coosemans wrote:
> >> On Tue, 08 Apr 2014 09:57:48 -0400 Mikhail T. wrote:
> >>> On 08.04.2014 08:00, freebsd-ports-request at freebsd.org wrote:
> >>>> If people are using a port, then I would agree it should be kept
> >>>> regardless of maintainer status. But that doesn't mean keeping
> >>>> everything forever as long as it compiles.
> >>> Why not? Why not "keep everything forever as long as it compiles"?
> Where
> >>> is this idea coming from, that stuff must be continuously updated to be
> >>> considered usable?
> >> It doesn't have to be updated continuously, but it has to be used.
> >> Keeping a port requires effort.  It needs to be kept up to date with
> >> infrastructural changes (like staging) and if nobody is using the port
> >> that's just a waste of effort.
> > Tijl, there is no indication whatsoever, that ports on the chopping
> block are
> > not used. The argument put forth by the proponents of the removals is
> thus: "The
> > upstream authors haven't made a new release in a long time, therefor the
> > software must be neither any good, nor see much use."
> >
> > I find this logic flawed -- some of my favorite books are more than 2000
> years
> > old, for example... Their authors certainly aren't making new releases,
> yet they
> > continue to be maintained, built (published), and used by generations.
> >
> > The closest we've ever come to estimating usage is the following: "If
> there is
> > any user-base to speak of, then there should be a person among them
> willing to
> > maintain the port -- or pay someone to maintain it." This, too, is
> flawed in my
> > opinion -- expecting a graphics-artist, a biologist, or an audiophile to
> also be
> > a half-decent software engineer is a stretch; expecting them to pay for
> > port-maintainership is also not fair, when the entire OS is free, done
> for fun,
> > rather than profit.
> >
> > Though I agree, that unmaintained ports should be dropped when they
> break due to
> > things like security bugs or compiler-upgrades, the self-inflicted
> wounds like
> > infrastructure changes do not qualify. Volunteers taking it upon
> themselves to
> > perform such changes, should be prepared to deal with all that's
> required for them.
>
> Volunteer time should not be wasted on ports nobody uses.  Removing such
> ports is a good thing.
>
> It's impossible to prove that a port is really unused, but if there are
> enough indications that it is potentially unused it becomes reasonable to
> assume that it is.  Lack of upstream development is one such indicator
> and by itself it may not be enough but in the examples you've given it
> isn't the only indicator.  For qvplay for instance the main argument is
> that it is support software for a 250 kilopixel camera from the nineties.
> For xmms there's xmms2, audacious and numerous other multimedia players.
>

While we are not having any way to measure ports usage (or am I wrong
here?), we're still building packages from ports, and I would hope that we
could get some statistics of pkg usage for certain packages from official
repositories, could we? This is not exactly direct relationship for the
port being used but I would think that such knowledge is better than none.

As a sidenote, perhaps its the time to introduce some sort of package/ports
usage data gathering to FreeBSD just like Debian/Ubuntu are doing it, that
would be anonymous and optional?

B.


>
> Then, once it is reasonable to assume that a port is unused it is first
> marked deprecated which gives users some time to step forward.  Only if
> nobody shows up in the given time frame is a port actually removed and
> even then it can still be restored in case some user does still show up.
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