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

[Grzegorz Junka]

>> Can't you just create the branch yourself? It's open source. You just 
>> clone it and can keep it in Github for free. Then you can apply 
>> security patches to just the applications you need yourself. If it's 
>> too difficult you can hire people to apply just specific patches. 
>> With Github pull requests it's deadly easy. I am sure that if you 
>> asked maintainers to do the patching for a financial incentive they 
>> would mind doing it.
> I actually explained it..  We do not have the people who understand 
> all those ports.
> if there is a port hat gets a fix, one assumes there is a maintainer 
> who at least understands that port a bit.
> I would feel more comfortable if they made the fix.
> Having said that I do think tat we do need to pony up some cash at 
> some stage.. and many others should too
> if we want to have something like this. I've said this elsewhere.

Fine. Considering that maintainers already apply patches to the latest 
quarterly branch. If there were to be OS version branches, it would mean 
that maintainers apart from what they are doing now would additionally 
need to apply selected patches to those OS version branches? Considering 
there would be, say, 3 latest version branches, and that 30% of the 
patches that go to the latest branch would need to also be ported to the 
OS version branches, that would roughly mean twice as much work as today?
Grzegorz