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

[Baho Utot]

On 6/22/2017 6:36 PM, Miroslav Lachman wrote:
> scratch65535 at att.net wrote on 2017/06/23 00:15:
>> [Default] On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 16:11:26 -0500, Mark Linimon
>> <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 12:32:45PM -0400, scratch65535 at att.net wrote:
>>>> My problem is that my industry experience tells me that reducing
>>>> the frequency of port releases is practically *guaranteed* to be
>>>> a Really Good Thing for everyone.
>>>
>>> I remember before we had the quarterly releases, and people on the
>>> mailing lists complained constantly about the ports bits only being
>>> available once per release, or rolling with -head.
>>
>> Mark, I can only suppose that those complainers are dilettantes
>> of some sort who believe that having The Latest-And-Greatest Bits
>> is a social-status enhancer.  **Nobody** with real work to do
>> ever willingly fools away time "fixing" what isn't broken.
>
> And this is where you are so wrong. Ports tree is never in the state 
> where everything works and has no bugs. (and cannot be, because 
> upstreams have bugs) Even if it compiles and installs it does not mean 
> that it is not broken and nobody needs newer version.
> Just because your needs are different than others doesn't mean others 
> are dilettantes.
>

That is just an argument to not do anything, by default.

Here is my point, I am a user that installs an OS ( FreeBSD-11.0). Then 
builds the base from releng-11.0.  Followed by building the ports I 
need.  That doesn't give me a usable system always.  Should I not be 
able to do the above and expect a stable system?  If not I am running 
the wrong OS/system.  Updates are another monster as I do not want to 
place my now running system ( finally stable ) and do this all over 
again.  I am not up for that.  Hell FreeBSD can not even boot my dual 
boot system Win7 and FreeBSD 11.0 on zfs raid without going to BIOS and 
selecting the disk to boot from.  No one here could point me to how to 
set it up using grub as a boot loader!  The only information I got was 
to wing it using half baked information.

FreeBSD needs a stable OS followed by a booting method/software followed 
by a stable ports system.

Linux became the custer it has because of the constant change for 
changes sake.  FreeBSD is close behind.
That is why I am going to switch to Open BSD as it has "correctness in 
mind" rather than "I got to have the lastest even if it gets me nothing" 
mindset.

You folks are beating yourself to death trying to keep up when it just 
is not necessary ( for most cases, although some one will say that they 
need the latest version of package XYZ ).  For instance, what do I gain 
by using version 11.0 and the ports head, over version 10.0 and the 
ports head at that time?   Well nothing.  YMMV.