Suggestions for porter's handbook on bsd licenced dependency options

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 6 Aug 2015, sid -- wrote:

> I'd like to suggest to put in the porter's handbook, bsd licenced 
> alternatives to commonly ported gnu-based dependencies.
> 
> For instance, to suggest the [radio] option of "OPENSSL" when the 
> program calls on "GNUTLS". It would be great to optionally also have 
> listed in the handbook, other alternatives to OPENSSL and GNUTLS like 
> NSS, POLARSSL and WOLFSSL. If anyone is unsure of what I'm refering 
> to, or the description of the Makefile code, please do a make config 
> and see the "Makefile" on "/usr/ports/ftp/curl" to see the possible 
> options.

If the application already supports a choice of sub-applications, it is 
nice when the port provides those same options.

Porters generally do not add functionality to an application.  devd(8) 
is not a drop-in replacement for HAL.  It just offers a similar function 
that can be used for detecting hot-plugged input devices.  Some FreeBSD 
developers added code to allow for that use, see
x11-servers/xorg-server/files/patch-config_devd.c.  Usually, this type 
of work is added upstream, in the application itself.  That makes for 
much less work in the future.  Otherwise, porters have to re-integrate 
the changes with each new version of the application.

As far as suggesting adding options, that would be more of a policy 
thing for the ports people.  It's not something the documentation group 
can add to the Porter's Handbook on our own.