docs/80681: articles/problem-reports: don't tell people they should sumbit a PR each time they see an outdated port

[Roman Neuhauser]

# itetcu at people.tecnik93.com / 2005-05-07 12:22:26 +0300:
> The only reason for "outdated announce" PR is that maybe someday someone
> other that a commiter (as a commiter is busy enough) will start looking
> in the PR database for something to do; now we all know how interested
> is the mythical Someone to do just that. IMO the practical value of this
> PR equals zero (even less since they generate supplementary work for the
> commiters - and the typical wait time for a non-commiter maintainer
> update is about a week this days).
> 
> Now if the port is maintained, to have a PR announcing you there's a new
> version is usually frustrating: you know there's a new version, you
> probably have worked with the developer on it, you're probably testing
> to see there's no regression, etc. So this kind of PRs do the same good
> as a simple email (which can be useful if you maintain a large number of
> ports or for the ports that are updated rarely - I use a monthly cron
> job to remind me of them).

    I used the above text as a base for this patch; I haven't tested
    it compiles.

Index: en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/article.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/ncvs/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/article.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.36
diff -u -u -r1.36 article.sgml
--- en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/article.sgml	15 Jan 2005 02:16:42 -0000	1.36
+++ en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/article.sgml	8 May 2005 10:11:30 -0000
@@ -107,6 +107,20 @@
 	  software (mainly ports, but also externally maintained base
 	  system components such as BIND or various GNU
 	  utilities).</para>
+    <para>For unmaintained ports (<makevar>MAINTAINER</makevar> contains
+      <literal>ports at FreeBSD.org</literal>), such update notifications
+      might get picked up by an interested
+      committer, or you might be asked to provide a patch to update
+      the port; providing it upfront will greatly improve your chances
+      that the port will get updated in a timely manner.</para>
+    <para>If the port is maintained, PRs announcing new upstream releases
+      are usually not very useful since they generate supplementary work
+      for the commiters, and the maintainer likely knows already there's
+      a new version, they have probably worked with the developers on it,
+      they're probably testing to see there's no regression, etc.</para>
+    <para>In either case, following the process described in <ulink
+      url="&url.books.porters-handbook;/port-upgrading.html">Porter's
+      Handbook</ulink> will yield the best results.</para>
       </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
 

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