From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 17 18:14:06 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0998B106564A for ; Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:14:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from corky1951@comcast.net) Received: from qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.96]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E766C8FC15 for ; Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:14:05 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta24.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.92]) by qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id LHvR1g0061zF43QA9JE5cF; Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:14:05 +0000 Received: from comcast.net ([98.203.142.76]) by omta24.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id LJE11g0101f6R9u8kJE2Z5; Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:14:03 +0000 Received: by comcast.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:14:01 -0700 Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:14:01 -0700 From: Charlie Kester To: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <20110317181401.GE16991@comcast.net> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.org References: <20110316233326.GA68341@lpthe.jussieu.fr> <4D818EFD.3060602@yandex.ru> <4D81D3AD.7040007@FreeBSD.org> <20110317103637.GB7901@gahrfit.gahr.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20110317103637.GB7901@gahrfit.gahr.ch> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Mailer: Mutt 1.4.2.3i X-Composer: Vim 7.3 Cc: Subject: Re: Deprecation campaign X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:14:06 -0000 On Thu 17 Mar 2011 at 03:36:38 PDT Pietro Cerutti wrote: >Well, this is not how it works. There are a lot of old ports which are >not being developped upstreams anymore. Probably nobody is interested >in maintaining those, because there's nothing to do to those ports >other than fixing potential build problems. However, this doesn't imply >that the port is useless or that nobody's interested in using it. Not >all consumers of FreeBSD ports follow ports@. > >I'd be very carful on killing ports. I agree on killing BROKEN ports >where the distfiles are not fetchable anymore. In this case, nobody can >benefit from having the (non working) port. But I wouldn't go further. > >And I'd welcome ANY effort to resurrect a port or make it workable >again, even if it does not imply setting a real MAINTAINER. I agree with you that a port shouldn't be deprecated simply because there hasn't been much recent activity upstream. Often that's simply an indication that the software is mature and relatively bug-free. It does not in any way imply that the software is no longer useful. (Think of all the stuff in /usr/bin that hasn't changed in years!) But I think the fact that many of the ports we're discussing in this thread had become unfetchable from the MASTER_SITES listed in their Makefiles is sufficient proof of the need for maintainers even when upstream is idling. Authors move their websites all the time, and they take their projects with them. Sometimes, perhaps as a cost-cutting measure, they shut down their self-hosted sites and move their projects to a repository like SourceForge. Or maybe they just reorganize their site, so that the downloads are now at a new address. So we see a need for a MASTER_SITES update even when the upstream author hasn't done anything that changes the distfile we need to download. If, as you say, these old ports don't require much work from a maintainer, I don't see why anyone who wants to keep them in the portstree should hesitate to put his name on them.