Is pkg quarterly really needed?

[Grzegorz Junka]

On 21/04/2017 02:51, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
>
>> If the whole repository builds doesn't it mean by default that any
>> subset also builds?
> If we defined a repo build only as valid if everything builds,
> the whole repo is never valid, because approx. 10% of
> the ports tree breaks at any given time. More, if you add options.

That's an interesting observation, I didn't know that. Does it mean that 
the quarterly port tree is no better or worse than the main branch? And 
is any tree ever build with non-default options? If no, how do you know 
how many are failing in that case?

>> My assumption was that only version
>> upgrades are progressed from CURRENT to STABLE to RELEASE.
> Leads to a stagnating tree downstream, if you find maintainers for it.
> That's the model Debian is using, and it has other issues. Especially
> the load for the maintainers is huge, and users are unhappy
> that the packages are getting old. Debian has approx. 6 times
> more committers than we have, when I last looked, and more maintainers.
>
> If we take from that that we have to grow our committer base, yes.
> Can we reason that unless we have that base, we can't follow that
> model ? Maybe.

Well, they can't be as unhappy as, say, Centos, where packages are 
really old. Also, I bet not all users are unhappy when the ports are not 
updated quickly. Corporate users tend to prefer stable versions even if 
they are getting a bit old, enthusiasts tend to prefer newest versions. 
FreeBSD can't cater for both groups a the same time. Which group has 
been chosen, if it has been chosen? Are we defaulting to enthusiasts?

Grzegorz