([HEADSUP] new portmgr recommendation about adding new p

From: Andrey Slusar (2:467/126)
To: All
Date: 2006-09-19T20:48:28Z
Area: RU.UNIX.BSD
From: Andrey Slusar <anrays@gmail.com>


--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Subject: [HEADSUP] new portmgr recommendation about adding new ports
From: linimon@lonesome.com (Mark Linimon)
To: ports@FreeBSD.org
Cc: 
X-Sent: 11 hours, 41 minutes, 29 seconds ago
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i

Here is the result of a discussion amongst the portmgr members during the
past few weeks, in response to the large number of new ports added to the
Ports Collection in the last few months.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently we've seen evidence of an increase in the number of ports that
are submitted "just because the software is there", and not out of any
underlying need for the port to exist.

When considering a new port, portmgr would like to ask you to please apply
the following criterion:

  New ports should only be submitted by someone who is actually using the
  software and will continue to use the port to maintain the software.

Adding a port of software that you do not personally use, or do not use
within the FreeBSD ports collection (such as an xpi browser extension that
you manage using firefox and not using the Ports Collection), is not a good
tradeoff between adding functionality and adding complexity.

Each additional port requires resources, both machine (from the package
building system) and people (to inspect the results from the package
building system).  This is especially true when you consider that we, as
a team, are all trying to keep ports buildable on on 4 different branches
and 5 different architectures (with increasing interest in arm and powerpc).

Past experience shows that these ports often quickly fall behind as new
versions are released, and when build breakages occur, they do not get
fixed.  In some other cases, some of our contributors try to keep ports
viable by fixes and updating long after their real usefulness has passed,
and that time could be better spent on the more worthwhile ports.

While no one is suggesting that we go the route some projects have with
some kind of 'gateway' process for approving new ports, at some point the
number of ports will simply be too great for our infrastructure (package
building system, sending PRs via email).  Some common sense should help
to keep us from reaching that point.

As a reminder, the Ports Collection already has 198 ports marked BROKEN*,
and 4291 unmaintained ones.  We really don't need to add to these numbers.

To summarize, we simply can't support all the possible applications out
on the Internet, so we need to use common sense to try to keep it down to
a maintainable number.

mcl

(*: on i386-6; the numbers are higher on the other architectures, and -CURRENT)
_______________________________________________
freebsd-ports@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-ports
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-ports-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

-- 
Regards,
Andrey.
--- Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) XEmacs/21.5-b27 (i386--freebsd)
 * Origin: Santinel (2:467/126)
SEEN-BY: 46/50 50/12 203 551 140/1 400/814 450/186 1024 451/30 462/30 463/614
SEEN-BY: 464/910 4077 467/70 126 468/10 550/196 4635/4 4653/10 5000/5000
SEEN-BY: 5010/352 5011/13 5012/46 5015/28 5019/31 5020/154 175 178 380 400 401
SEEN-BY: 5020/545 549 715 758 921 958 1042 1523 1604 1630 1822 1960 2024 2044
SEEN-BY: 5020/2142 2238 2395 2450 2452 2590 2871 3452 4441 12000 5021/3 29
SEEN-BY: 5022/5 128 5025/3 750 5026/49 5027/12 5029/32 60 5030/49 115 500 556
SEEN-BY: 5030/966 1063 1080 1900 1957 2828 5031/47 70 5035/38 5040/47 5042/13
SEEN-BY: 5043/0 19 5045/7 5049/50 97 5052/4 5054/1 4 8 9 11 28 35 36 37 45 63
SEEN-BY: 5054/66 67 70 75 84 85 5055/95 5059/9 26 5060/900 5062/1 10 5063/3
SEEN-BY: 5064/7 5076/1 5077/70 5080/80 1003 5082/6 5083/21 5085/13 5090/108
SEEN-BY: 5094/4 5095/20 5096/18 5099/11 6001/10 6053/1 6056/1
PATH: 467/126 46/50 5020/715 4441 545 5054/1 37