reason 23 why we've moved to linux

[Jim Ohlstein]

Hello Mark,

On 3/23/14, 11:38 AM, Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 09:12:48AM -0400, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
>> last I checked there were over 1500 active ports related PR's alone.
>
> Current count is 1851.  See http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portsoverall.py .
>
> The whole list is at:
>
>    http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portsprsbyexplanation.py?explanation=existing&sortby=prnumber&reverse .
>
> I did a little rough data reduction for curiosity about changes related
> to "new infra":
>
> % grep -i clang foo | wc -l
>        32
> % grep -i stage foo | wc -l
>        37
> % grep -i staging foo | wc -l
>        31
> % grep -i options foo | wc -l
>        31
> % grep -i cflags foo | wc -l
>         5
> % grep USE_ foo | wc -l
>        22
> % grep WITH_ foo | wc -l
>        19
>
> as opposed to:
>
> % grep -i update foo | wc -l
>       280
>
> NB: I didn't check for overlaps.
>
> I was expected to see more "new infra" changes than 200.
>
> I will note that about a third of the PRs are from the last 3 months.
> I no longer have an insight into how fast PRs are turned over but it
> is quite brisk.
>
> mcl
>

Thanks for your response. I don't think that tells the whole story.

How many PR's contain "broken" or "broken on 10" or "break" or "build" 
or similar? Another few I'm sure. Updates are important too. Many of us 
look forward to new features not to mention important security fixes. 
The only ones which may not be "urgent" or "important" are the new port 
proposals of which I counted 181. (I have a few in there and I am 
waiting patiently. I spent quite a few hours working on a port of 
MonetDB which sits there untaken. Maybe it sucks but I'd like 
feedback/help if needed. I have others for which I directly approached a 
committer whom I like and respect since he maintains similar ports, and 
was told he's too busy.)

I'm not trying to make this more a bitch-fest than it is, but I'll point 
out the obvious that if a third of PR's are from the last three months, 
that means two thirds are older than three months! I don't find that to 
be "quite brisk". If the ratio were reversed it I might be inclined to 
agree.

My point however, perhaps was missed. While I did squawk that the new 
pkg system is in a state of flux and therefore not appropriate for sole 
use on 10, I was separately mentioning the glacial pace at which ports 
related PR's get looked at, taken, and committed. There is no obvious 
triage system. It's simply if someone is "interested" they take the PR. 
If no one is interested, it sits. Imagine if a hospital emergency 
department functioned that way. A gunshot wound might sit in the waiting 
room because seeing a case of strep throat would be less work, or a 
laceration needing sutures might be more fun. And one case of strep 
throat might sit six hours while another waited only 30 minutes because 
it was up to the doctors and nurses to decide who they wanted to see and 
when, not based on any system of necessity, urgency or how long a 
problem has been waiting.

In the current system, if there is a maintainer, s/he may not answer a 
PR for months, even if that person is a FreeBSD committer. If ports 
don't build, that *is* a big issue because pretty much everyone uses 
them. With two thirds of ports related PR's over three months old, 
updating your system is a crapshoot at best.

-- 
Jim Ohlstein


"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the 
difference." - Mark Twain