From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jul 12 11:41:49 2010 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 DEECD1065677 for ; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:41:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from matthias.andree@gmx.de) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4A9978FC1A for ; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:41:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 12 Jul 2010 11:41:47 -0000 Received: from baloo.cs.uni-paderborn.de (EHLO baloo.cs.uni-paderborn.de) [131.234.21.116] by mail.gmx.net (mp041) with SMTP; 12 Jul 2010 13:41:47 +0200 X-Authenticated: #428038 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX19oU44x1h1oH/mtOBDdX0kIXTgjbn4jKIGaFMSlyM rPnVuxO+b/iACs Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=balu.cs.uni-paderborn.de) by baloo.cs.uni-paderborn.de with esmtp (Exim 4.70) (envelope-from ) id L5G0HM-0000P4-KX for freebsd-ports@freebsd.org; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:41:46 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15; format=flowed; delsp=yes To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org References: <925937.82371.qm@web33307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20100711045532.GA6496@lonesome.com> <1278848394.3900.6.camel@hp-laptop> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:41:46 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Matthias Andree" Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <1278848394.3900.6.camel@hp-laptop> User-Agent: Opera Mail/10.60 (Win32) X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 Subject: Re: PR Load Solutions 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: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:41:50 -0000 Jesse Smith wrote on 2010-07-11: > I'm not saying I have a solution. Just that I'd like to help out as much > as the veteran maintainers are willing. There's also the burden of testing PRs, we "veteran committers" (I still have two mentors myself) need to make sure the port builds and installs cleanly on the supported FreeBSD releases. For that purpose, we set up so-called "tinderboxes" which builds ports in a controlled environment. If port maintainers can do that and provide the logs on a web-/fileserver and include the Tinderbox log URL in their PR, that may help a bit. > On a related note, what about trying to actively attract upstream > maintainers to help out with the ports of their projects? I didn't even > know until recently that two of my projects had been added to the Ports > tree. Once I found out, I wanted to help keep those ports maintained and > up to date. Maybe other up-stream developers could be recruited to > babysit their ports? This has some drawbacks, especially for smaller upstream projects, so this should be decided case by case: - if I am doing most of the upstream work, there are fewer eyes to look at the FreeBSD port; - upstream maintainers may in some cases be less familiar with FreeBSD, they may not even use it. One such example is sysutils/e2fsprogs, another security/openvpn; just from my collection. - upstream maintainers may be very good at programming, project management, whatever; FreeBSD port maintainers always cannot be too alien to systems administration. - it usually pays off if the maintainer is actively using FreeBSD and the port he is maintaining. This is often not the case, otherwise the upstream maintainer already is the port maintainer :) If this is done in the wrong way, it will backfire and actually raise support burden because the load of getting the actual "porting" part (FreeBSD adjustments) done propagates to committers... Sure there are cases when the upstream maintainer is the port maintainer (f.i. news/leafnode, mail/bogofilter*), but I'm not sure this could fly as a general concept. Note this is a personal opinion, not necessarily consensus. I'm /not/ posting on behalf of FreeBSD here. Best regards Matthias -- Matthias 'mandree@' Andree