svn commit: r402813 - head/misc/astrolog

[Alexey Dokuchaev]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 10:02:47AM +0100, John Marino wrote:
> On 12/2/2015 9:54 AM, Andrey Chernov wrote:
> > 3) Contact the person who does most commits to this port.
> 
> I think this is a dream.  I don't expect people to sort through the
> history and try to figure out a commit pattern, plus the presence of a
> prior commit doesn't imply a willingness for a future commit.

Again, this (that checking prior history is a dream) is our problem.
Andrey is totally right here, that's what version control for and that's
what responsible developer does.  The fact that lots of us do not care
to go through the history, to an extent of neglecting to properly repo-
copy or move ports, essentially using SVN as kind of FTP, does not mean
that we're doing it correctly.

So yeah, I'd expect people to sort through the history.  If they don't,
they should learn something about collaborative software development
first.  For ports committers, it must be a part on their obligatory
introductory course they receive while being mentored.  (Again, IMHO we
are not doing good job mentoring people, given the quality of commits.)

> > IMHO ports at freebsd.org means "collectively maintained" (without any
> > obligation, but with good intentions). There is no reason to put e-mail
> > address in this field otherwise, just the word "unmaintained" which
> > clearly indicates no contacts.
> 
> This is incorrect.  It's ports at FreeBSD.org because it needs a valid
> email address, in this case a mail list.

As explained in another email, I don't see anything incorrect about this
reading of Andrey's.

> This philosophical disagreement is a problem, because I would sooner
> deprecate an unmaintained port than fix it.  If you care about this port
> so much, then adopt it.

Yes, this is a problem, because it means that unmaintained ports become
endangered species, risking to be removed from the tree.  Then, later,
someone will likely "svn add" it again, because, well, like you've said,
"reading history is a dream". :-(

I don't want to adopt a port that I use only once in a while.  I'd rather
prefer it to be under ports@ wing.  If it gets broken, someone can fix it
next time they pass by.  This might not scale well for complicated ports,
but for simple ones it works just fine.

./danfe