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Date:      Mon, 15 May 2006 05:55:56 +0100
From:      Spadge <spadge@fromley.net>
To:        ports@freebsd.org
Cc:        "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD. ORG" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Has the port collection become to large to handle.
Message-ID:  <446809DC.6010708@fromley.net>
In-Reply-To: <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGGEALHHAA.fbsd@a1poweruser.com>
References:  <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGGEALHHAA.fbsd@a1poweruser.com>

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fbsd wrote:
> Spadge
> Your comments are becoming more and more meaningless.
> You are no longer contributing to the brainstorming of this thread.
> Your attempt to engage a argument have failed.
> All posts from you will go unanswered as you are now on my troll
> kill list.

*joy*

Agreeing with one suggestion to potentially improve the ports system, 
whilst not agreeing with every suggestion makes me a troll, just because 
I take the time to bother replying to your posts? I'll not be making 
that mistake again later.

The ports system is very dear to me, it's something that I use all the 
time; 4 years into my experience with FreeBSD and it still impresses me. 
Does this mean I think it's perfect and can't be improved upon from 
where it is now? No, of course not. Do I consider myself qualified to 
suggest overhauling the entire system just because it fails to meet my 
needs in one respect or another? No, it does not. Do I feel that I 
should be allowed to voice my opinions in a thread which called for the 
users of FreeBSD and its ports system to voice their opinions? 
Certainly, yes I do.

> So the People who currently make no packages are now making four of
> them, and people running mysql3 are expected to manage on their own,
> and
> for some reason this reduces the workload? *** quite trying to put
> words
> in my mouth. You know just as well as I that is not what was said.
> ******

I was just replying to the words you used, I'm sorry if I missed some 
meaning or another.

> Have you considered PCBSD? They've worked long and hard covering
> exactly
> this sort of thing, making BSD into a viable graphical
> desktop/server
> environment, and done more than a great job of it.
> 
> For instance ... http://www.pbidir.com/packages.php?code=224
> ******** I fail to see how this has anything to do with this thread
> as covered by the OP. Please stay on topic.  **********
> 

You fail to see how a link to a group that creates and distributes a 
FreeBSD based system with a different kind of packaging system that has 
all the (what they consider to be) most popular ports built into easy to 
get and install packages has anything to do with the original post and 
the discussion that followed?

OK then. I think that as long as someone relies on other people to 
compile packages for them, things won't be tailored to meet the needs of 
that person, specifically where dependency versions and compile-time 
options are concerned, and that whatever is done to change this it will 
always remain true for someone, at least. This is specifically what the 
ports system is great for, and why there is a base make.conf for global 
make arguments, and something that utilities like portupgrade exist for, 
to make easier for the user: to allow someone who is installing or 
updating any software through the ports tree to pick up arguments like 
WITH_APACHE2, so that their system then doesn't go and try to install 
apache13 instead or as well because that is listed as the base 
dependency version in the port.

Now, all that said, have a look at PCBSD's PBI system, it pretty much 
does what you wanted from the package system from the start. And for 
those people who don't want to compile their own stuff, but who still 
want something that isn't quite the default build, there's a request 
mechanism in place.

> If you're referring to "Of course some precautions in counting the
> hits to the special purpose FreeBSD website would have to be used
> to drop attempts by people trying to manipulate the results in
> favor of some particular port." then I fail to see how this
> addresses
> the problem, other than calling for someone else to come up with an
> idea
> to fix it.
> 
> Needless to say, any mechanism short of manual human intervention is
> going to be unreliable and fairly easy to work around, given the
> desire
> to do so. ****** yes that is the section you cut out to give meaning
> to you previous comments. It doesn't take a expert programmer to
> write
> the simple code to notice a flood of hits from the same ip address
> for
> the same port within some given elapse time period. *******

And any script kiddie with even a modest botnet could knock up a simple 
script to throw the figures way out of kilter. Someone with a slightly 
less modest botnet could have a much larger impact.

> 
> I was refraining from attacking people. Also, I feel it is fair to
> say
> that this thread's history starts somewhere before the start of the
> thread. Naturally, you may disagree.
> 
> I fully expect to have approximately no reputation on this list to
> tarnish or otherwise. I honestly don't think I have said anything
> even
> remotely memorable yet.
> **** That statement is the only memorable thing you have said so
> far. LOL *****

Cute.


-- 
Spadge
"Intoccabile"
www.fromley.com



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