[RFC] Why FreeBSD ports should have branches by OS version

[Vlad K.]

On 2017-06-22 14:15, David Demelier wrote:
> 
> While I use quarterly ports branches, I usually update my ports tree
> before installing a new service and I faced some troubles:

What works best for us, to keep a stable production, is to track the 
HEAD with svn. That way we can pre-empt changes locally, test, and 
deploy into production, or block upstream changes by keeping some older 
version until something else is fixed.

Otherwise as others have suggested, the problem is manpower and 
backporting patches. Although, in my experience having run both Ubuntu 
LTS and FreeBSD in production, when a maintainer, who is not the 
developer of some software, tries to backport patches, it often results 
in regressions and even more problems introduced. So I'd rather use 
rolling release directly from the developers with minimal local changes.

A rolling release with clearly marked stable versions kept longer around 
(ala Gentoo), is the best way to solve the problem with ports without 
introducing extra manpower and the need to backport.



-- 
Vlad K.