"stable" ports?

[eculp]

Quoting Ivan Voras <ivoras at freebsd.org>:

> Doug Hardie wrote:
>> On 29 March 2010, at 08:57, Ivan Voras wrote:
>>
>>> In some cases the burdens are obvious - the maintainer(s) would need to
>>> e.g. maintain three versions of the ports - a random example would be
>>> e.g. X.Org 7.0 for 6.x, 7.2 for 7.x and 7.4 for 8.x. Another would be
>>> keeping PHP 5.2 for 7.x and 8.x and having 5.3 in the future
>>> (CURRENT/9.x) branch.
>>
>> I am a bit concerned about your concept of maintain, being able to  
>> build a port successfully, does not necessarily mean it will work  
>> properly.  For example, qpopper (which I maintain) has an issue  
>> where one feature does not work properly on 64 bit machines where  
>> it works fine on 32 bit machines.  In addition, there are a number  
>> of other machine types that are currently not heavily used but  
>> might become so in the future.  Thats a lot of different  
>> combinations of hardware and OSs to keep running for the maintainers.
>
> It was done (in Linux), hence it can be done. If all else fails and  
> both the project and the maintainer cannot find suitable build and  
> test machines, I'd suggest using ONLY_FOR_ARCHS, or doing the whole  
> "stable" dance only for Tier 1 platforms (enumerated in  
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/committers-guide/archs.html  
> to be i386, amd64, pc98). AFAIK from the ports POW, pc98 and i386  
> are too close to be considered separately.
>
> Virtualization (VirtualBox) may help maintainers test on the  
> architecture they don't run natively.

IIRC, pcbsd uses both ports and package system that I have assumed was  
similar to linux but I have never used it so I can't comment but it  
would seem practical to work together if there is common ground. Their  
site says:
--
The PBI Format

Part of making a Desktop Operating System that people feel immediately  
comfortable with is ensuring that software installation is as easy and  
familiar as possible. PC-BSD has taken this approach when developing  
the PBI (Pc-Bsd Installer or Push-Button Installer) file format.  
Programs under PC-BSD are completely self-contained and  
self-installing, in a graphical format. A PBI file also ships with all  
the files and libraries necessary for the installed program to  
function, eliminating much of the hardship of dealing with broken  
dependencies and system incompatibilities. PBI files also provide  
developers and packagers with advanced scripting and user interaction  
in an entirely graphical format, making the entire install procedure  
similar to what a user would expect from other popular graphical  
operating systems.
--

I personally like the way the ports work and will probably not change  
to any type of packages but you never know.  I have never felt  
comfortable with the Linux packages.

Have a great day,

ed