BIND REPLACE_BASE option

[Michelle Sullivan]

Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 01:29:32PM +0100, Michelle Sullivan wrote:
>   
>> Just a thought: "FreeNAS"
>>     
>
> FreeNAS uses ports ... in their own way.  Yes, they do contribute back
> changes as well.
>
> The point that I was trying to make, even though I used bad data, was
> that Ports aren't being driven by external influence.
>   

No disputing that, just thinking, is FreeBSD being driven by user need,
financial contributer need, developer need, security need, making things
'better' or just by people wanting to make their mark in a warped sense
of "it'll all get better"...?

Questions people should ask are:

Do we want to make things easier for existing users.
Do we want to make things easier for users to convert from other OSes
Do we want to develop for anyone paying for changes regardless of the
cost (to users)
Do we want people to develop what they want for their own purpose

My thoughts on all those questions:

We should not make anything harder for existing users, and make things
easier if possible - however if they are existing users the chances are
they already know how to make things work so we should not break stuff
already working.

We should make things easier for people to migrate to us, and that may
mean the work should concentrate on fixing bugs and updating docs as a
priority over new features (Microsoft for years went down the route of
new features over security or docs, look where it got them)

Develop for anyone?  Yes and No, what is requested should be evaluated
for benefit to the community as a whole and prioritized based on cost
and contributions, and rejected out right if it is considered
detrimental to the community as a whole (and we should listen to
minorities when evaluating, because sometimes the smaller voices can
provide saner/long term paths to the same goal.)

People develop for their own purpose... well that's what the ports tree
is therefore isn't it? ;-)

Probably more questions and answers can be added, but they are the first
to come to mind.

Michelle

-- 
Michelle Sullivan
http://www.mhix.org/