Re: removing mutt patches

From: Felix Palmen <zirias_at_FreeBSD.org>
Date: Fri, 05 May 2023 18:19:42 UTC
* Derek Schrock <dereks@lifeofadishwasher.com> [20230504 18:33]:
> However, given that some of the patches are part of neomutt I think that
> if you need these features you can either install that or build locally
> with local patches or better yet work with upstream to include to
> directly to mutt.
> 
> I've always wanted to drop all patches since I don't use any of the
> features so in turn don't have a good means to test however I've kept
> them in for legacy reasons.

Disclaimer, NeoMutt user here (former user of Mutt with "random"
patches). IMHO: go ahead and drop them. FreeBSD ports deliver "vanilla"
upstream software whenever possible.

The situation with Mutt seems to be a bit special, because even many
years ago, there were a *lot* of patches floating around that upstream
didn't include. Whether there was just a lack of resources or there was
some reason to reject them, I don't know, but IMHO, that's not
important.

The important thing is, these patches added valuable features, but
that's exactly where NeoMutt took the stage as a fork including many of
these features. Before that happened, there was some justification to
offer feature patches as a distributor. But, IMHO, nowadays, there isn't
any more. And in case some feature is missing in NeoMutt, putting a
feature request there is probably more promising.

So, again IMHO, let's stick to the "only patch ustream when really
needed to fix something" policy with Mutt as well.

Cheers, Felix

-- 
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