Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 02:08:00 +0000 From: Alexey Dokuchaev <danfe@FreeBSD.org> To: Adam Weinberger <adamw@adamw.org> Cc: svn-ports-head@freebsd.org, Antoine Brodin <antoine@freebsd.org>, owner-ports-committers@freebsd.org, svn-ports-all@freebsd.org, ports-committers@freebsd.org, Jason Helfman <jgh@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: svn commit: r321445 - head/mail/gnarwl Message-ID: <20130624020800.GB38393@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <3193101f9cd156d439cf8035bf174f3f@mail.adamw.org> References: <201306210619.r5L6JY12055282@svn.freebsd.org> <CAMuy=%2Bj0FvdUx86RF9MX6-HBRXzvpwDtK8xuWkyG%2ByJxo3-VaA@mail.gmail.com> <20130621073819.GA1394@FreeBSD.org> <3193101f9cd156d439cf8035bf174f3f@mail.adamw.org>
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On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 08:55:19AM -0400, Adam Weinberger wrote:
> On 2013/06/21 03:38, Alexey Dokuchaev wrote:
> >It's maintainer's duty to ensure that port provides appropriate
> >configure arguments; if user is smart/brave enough to change them, we
> >must assume that we knows what he's doing, and can edit Makefile
> >directly. That said, CONFIGURE_ARGS= is correct here.
>
> As a smart and brave user, I prefer to be able to fiddle with things
> in /etc/make.conf, so that I don't have to re-patch the Makefile every
> time it gets updated. And sometimes, I even want to make customizations
> that aren't provided as an OPTION. A nice way to do
> that is
> .if ${.CURDIR:M*/mail/someport}
> CONFIGURE_ARGS+= --with-custom-banner=something
> .endif
Correct way would be commit options like these to port's Makefile: 1) if
they are useful to you, they might be useful to others as well, and 2)
I've heard d4p will soon learn how to accept option text strings (allowing
for --with-custom-banner=something, not just on/off like right now ;-).
> I understand your point, but if we're going to have a perspective,
> why not make it the perspective that lets users do as MUCH as possible,
> rather than limiting them to the subset of things that we pre-think for
> them?
We're winning a lot by preventing too much of environment pollution; if
we blindly allow any possible customization, we would have to deal with
a whole bunch of 'it does not build' PRs just because that user had some
shit in their /etc/make.conf. Even if the user is not a dumbass, and in
fact is a mighty smart folk, it's better to educate him how to turn his
customizations into robust solution that can be committed to the port
itself for everyone's pleasure, rather than opening such a pile of worms
that upholding arbitrary /etc/make.conf settings will quickly turn into.
> Our users are mighty smart folk; I propose giving them the benefit
> of the doubt.
Given the quality of most PRs (which is quite, sometimes very, bad), I
by far would not say that our users, at least those who managed to figure
out send-pr(1), are mighty smart in their vast majority. In fact, I would
say that trying to allow users do as MUCH as possible is inherently wrong
thing to do; primarily for their own benefit.
./danfe
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