github ports

Polytropon freebsd at edvax.de
Mon Jan 11 09:16:30 UTC 2021


> As I remember, FreeBSD used csup for src and doc trees, also ports
> tree, but switched to svn in 2012 because of a security breach with
> csup.

Initially, you had to install cvs (the whole package) or
cvsup-without-gui. Later on, a CVS client written in C called
csup was made part of the OS. With the transition to Subversion,
the same happened: at first you needed to install SVN, later
on a "small" client called svnlite was added to the OS. If I
understood the planning correctly, a similar approach is intended
for Git, i. e., a Git client will become part of the OS so you
can obtain the sources without having to install the whole Git
software package and its many dependencies.



> I used portsnap before that for the ports tree, but then
> switched to svn, since I was tracking src and doc trees and
> was motivated by one-stop shopping.

Additionally, the "make update" mechanisms for source-based
updating work best with CVS / SVN / Git, especially if you
just want to obtain some little delta of a few days.

The scope of Git and portsnap, from a user's perspective,
is so different that it would be nice to have two distinct
tools (except Git gains the capabilities of portsnap).
Just compare the "whole ports tree" method of portsnap
with obtaining the "whole src tree" method of freebsd-update,
having the "src" distribution enabled.



> I suspect portsnap will no longer be workable.

That is not implied, but could be possible. My understanding is
that it's technically possible to create a snapshot (the "snap"
part of the portsnap name) from a Git-based ports tree and then
distribute that as a binary package. Of course the mechanisms
to do so would have to be adapted from SVN to Git...



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


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