Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 18:48:09 -0500 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> To: "G. Adam Stanislav" <zen@buddhist.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Applications Message-ID: <3717CC38.4CF1B824@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> References: <199904160601.XAA88836@rah.star-gate.com> <19990415224102.A47059@ontario.mooseriver.com> <199904160601.XAA88836@rah.star-gate.com> <3.0.6.32.19990416161503.0092d260@mail.bfm.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
FWIW;
I have had good success having my ports committed for a good reason: my ports
usually cover a need that many people share. Everyone, for example, wants to be
able to use their ghostscript fonts on X. I understand committers are also
volunteers and I don't have any particular interest in pushing them to do
something about my ports, but the applications that get committed earlier somehow
represent general interest of the community. I sometimes look at freshmeat
myself, but there also so much junk coming in, that I thank we don't carry all
that bloat in the, already tight, CDs.
I suggest that you submit the port for the utility and reference the PR number of
the library for it in the new PR. No one is interested in committing a library
unless it's used for something, and there are many non-committers that like to
test the "fresh" ports. There are one or two libraries that I submitted sometime
ago in order to build an Rlab port: nowadays I have no interest in porting Rlab,
but if I had sent the complete Rlab port, it would have probably been committed.
OTOH, if the port builds and work correctly don't expect much feedback :-).
Pedro.
"G. Adam Stanislav" escribió:
> At 23:14 15-04-1999 -0700, Josef Grosch wrote:
> >I think the problem is a lot of FreeBSD people want to be kernel hackers and
> >don't want to get their hands dirty with double-entry bookkeeping,
> >warehouse, order-entry, or assent management systems. There is just not a
> >lot of glory in the hacker world for these kinds of programs.
>
> Hmmm... I have been writing applications for a long time (started
> programming in 1965). One of the first things I did when I got FreeBSD late
> last year was to write some tools. I mentioned that at one of the
> mailgroups, and received a lot of yawns in return.
>
> Indeed, any time I mention in any FreeBSD list that I wrote some program, I
> get a lot of negative replies, assuring me no one will ever need them and
> non-sense like that.
>
> Then I discovered freshmeat.net and announced my programs there. I received
> thousands of visitors from there, mostly Linuxites. I always get instant
> feedback from them. For example, version 2.0 of my Graphic Counter Language
> had some FreeBSD-specific code which made it impossible to compile under
> Linux. I received email from a Linux user who pointed out where exactly the
> problem was, and offered to test my software to make sure it compiles and
> runs under Linux.
>
> I have since made two or three submissions to the ports collection. I
> received an automated reply with a number assigned to them. That was last I
> heard of them (this was about a month ago). The idea behind one of these
> port submissions was that it was a library needed to a number of i18n tools
> I have developed since. These tools all need the library. But I cannot
> release them to the ports collection (although I find it silly to call them
> "ports" since I developed them on and for FreeBSD), I cannot release them
> because the library is still not in the ports collection, and they need the
> library.
>
> Meanwhile, I announced them all on freshmeat.net. They always get announced
> the next day, and my site is swamped by people downloading them. They use
> them, too, judging from the email I keep getting.
>
> So, it is rather ironic: I have developed tools for FreeBSD and am unable
> to submit them, while they are already being used by Linuxites all over the
> world.
>
> Adam
> ---
> Want to design your own web counter?
> Get GCL 2.10 from http://www.whizkidtech.net/gcl/
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3717CC38.4CF1B824>