ports/64796: [NEW PORT] news/leafnode-devel: leafnode, supporting local groups and rnews

Mon May 10 14:12:37 UTC 2004

Andrey Slusar <anray at santinel.home.ua> writes:

>  >Submitter-Id:	current-users
>  >Originator:	Andrey Slusar
>  >Organization:	Santinel
>  >Confidential:	no 
>  >Synopsis:	ports/64796: [NEW PORT] news/leafnode-devel: leafnode,
>  >supporting local groups and rnews

I am the upstream maintainer and the news/leafnode port maintainer.
I have several remarks about this new port.

SHORT STORY: reject this. Ask again in August.

LONG STORY:

* leafnode-2 is an alpha version that is not supposed to be packaged or
  ported or whatever. This port lacks even the least trace of being an
  alpha version, it doesn't even have a proper PORTVERSION. It should be
  called 2.0.0.a20040510a (which is the current version) and have a
  NOPACKAGE and a NO_LATEST_LINK and a _HUGE_ banner that it is an alpha
  version, not suitable for production and all that, at the very least.

  I have INTENTIONALLY refrained from making a leafnode-devel or
  leafnode2 port to date, and the reason is simply that I'll have zero
  spare time over the next two or three months and I simply cannot
  afford attracting additional work - I couldn't handle it anyways.

  Consider the leafnode-2 upstream effort suspended for the few
  months. I don't have time to care for it, neither have the
  co-maintainers.

  Anyways, the license on the code does not prohibit FreeBSD from
  offering such a port.

* I do not know Andrey and neither of his two addresses I know is on the
  leafnode mailing list. I have never had off-list correspondence with
  Andrey. How is a maintainer who is not on the (low-traffic!) mailing
  list supposed to know what's going on upstream? How do I, how do the
  FreeBSD ports system users know if he will support the port well?

  I think a maintainer of an alpha port needs to fulfill extra duties
  (and the Debian port maintainer meets these expectations), at least
  for the time being until I have more spare time:

  - subscribe to the pertinent mailing list, leafnode-list in this case,
    and actively read it.

  - be able to support users

  - be acquainted with the code so he can offer advise or patches or at
    least accompany forwarded bug reports with a good analysis, check if
    the bug persists in a newer version and all that other first-level
    support stuff.

  - hopefully he's skilled enough to add an occasional bug fix to the
    port

  - co-operate with the upstream maintainers, and also co-operate with
    other package maintainers in case inconsistencies need to be
    resolved. This is very important to maintain a high quality of the
    port.

  I do not know Andrey's skills, for lack of his visibility in my
  range. If he can meet these expectations, fine, go ahead and read the
  technical section below and revise the port.

  But he should be aware he's going to do all the support work over the
  next two or three months and have sufficient spare time to handle what
  I can't do over the next weeks.

  Given that leafnode-1.9 is stable and works well and requires very
  little support (about one incident per week), but leafnode-2 has more
  rough edges, bug fixes needing a forward port from 1.9 etc, it may not
  be a good idea to create the port at this time.

On to the technical part:

>  >Description:
>  	Added bugfixed and updated port

Bogus. leafnode-2 has its own set of bugs, likely to be more numerous
than leafnode-1.

>  X# ports collection Makefile for: leafnode-devel
>  X# Whom:			Andrey Slusar <vasallia at ukr.net>
>  X# Date created:		2004-03-01

Interesting. The port slept for two months without questions asked or
hints mailed to the upstream. There needs to be a lot more
communication if this is supposed to succeed some day.

>  X#
>  X# $FreeBSD$
>  X#
>  X
>  XPORTNAME=	leafnode
>  XPORTVERSION=	2.0.0

Bogus. 2.0.0.a20040510a.

>  XCATEGORIES=	news ipv6
>  XMASTER_SITES=	http://www.dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~ma/leafnode/beta/

Should be http://home.pages.de/~mandree/leafnode/beta/

>  XDISTNAME=	${PORTNAME}-${PORTVERSION}.alpha20040510a
>  X
>  XMAINTAINER=	vasallia at ukr.net
>  XCOMMENT=	NNTP package for offline news caching and reading
>  X
>  XLIB_DEPENDS=	pcre.0:${PORTSDIR}/devel/pcre
>  X
>  XUSE_BZIP2=	yes
>  XGNU_CONFIGURE=  yes
>  X
>  X.if exists(/var/spool/news) && !defined(PACKAGE_BUILDING)
>  XLEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR?=/var/spool/news
>  X.endif
>  XLEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR?=/var/spool/leafnode

This should be

LEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR?=     /var/spool/leafnode2

and nothing else. No ifs attached.

>  XPLIST_SUB=	SPOOLDIR=${LEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR}
>  X
>  XCONFIGURE_ARGS=	--prefix=${PREFIX} --sysconfdir=${PREFIX}/etc/leafnode \
>  X		--with-lockfile=${LEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR}/leaf.node/lock.file \
>  X		--enable-spooldir=${LEAFNODE_SPOOLDIR} --with-ipv6 \
>  X		--with-logdir=/var/log/leafnode

--with-lockfile? --with-logdir? --with-ipv6? Whence?

$ grep WITH configure.ac
AM_WITH_DMALLOC
AC_ARG_WITH(pam,

>  XCONFIGURE_TARGET=--build=${MACHINE_ARCH}-portbld-freebsd${OSREL}
>  X
>  XMAN1=		newsq.1 lsmac.1
>  XMAN5=		filterfile.5
>  XMAN8=		applyfilter.8 checkgroups.8 fetchnews.8 leafnode.8 rnews.8 texpire.8
>  XPKGMESSAGE=	${WRKSRC}/pkg-message
>  X
>  XMA_DOCS=	AUTHORS COPYING.LGPL CREDITS DEBUGGING FAQ INSTALL README README.html \
>  X		README-leaf.node UPDATING TODO NEWS
>  X
>  X.if !defined(NOPORTDOCS)
>  Xpost-install:
>  X	${MKDIR} ${DOCSDIR}
>  X.for i in ${MA_DOCS}
>  X	${INSTALL_DATA} ${WRKSRC}/${i} ${DOCSDIR}
>  X.endfor
>  X.endif
>  X
>  X.include <bsd.port.mk>

OK, the port lacks NO_LATEST_LINK, NOPACKAGE and proper pkg-message with
huge "alpha version" warning banners.

>  END-of-/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/Makefile
>  echo x - /usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/distinfo
>  sed 's/^X//' >/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/distinfo << 'END-of-/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/distinfo'
>  XMD5 (leafnode-2.0.0.alpha20040510a.tar.bz2) = ed0db70357f41167cb3d874e11504133
>  XSIZE (leafnode-2.0.0.alpha20040510a.tar.bz2) = 279098
>  END-of-/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/distinfo
>  echo x - /usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/pkg-descr
>  sed 's/^X//' >/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/pkg-descr << 'END-of-/usr/ports/news/leafnode-devel/pkg-descr'
>  XLeafnode v2.0-ma is a simple NNTP server and client designed for
>  small sites.

There is no "-ma" tag attached. I am the official leafnode-2
maintainer. The description should be refined to mention local groups.

>  X
>  XIt "learns" which newsgroups should be downloaded based on what's accessed.
>  XUse it to enable online newsreaders to offline reading.
>  X
>  XWWW: http://www.dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~ma/leafnode/beta/

See above.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypted mail welcome: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95