[ On Tuesday, May 4, 1999 at 10:34:51 (-0700), Jonathan Stone wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVSup collections for a NetBSD CVS tree
>
> That is not the point. The point is, when CVSup becomes an ``official'
> sevrice, users *will* want it on ports other than Greg's
> more-equal-than- other ports. Quite rightly, too. That puts pressure
> on *me* to provide it.
> 
> What you and Greg are doing is going to put pressure all NetBSD and
> all its portmasters to port Modula-3. You are deliberately bypassing
> the question of whether that's a worth-while thing to do, or whether
> we as a Project should be pursuing some other

Ah, now we get to the meat of the misunderstanding.

Jonathan *you* (and your fellow portmasters) are not responsible for
porting M3 or any other add-on package.  Those who want it are.  That's
how a volunteer project (should) work.

Indeed you might be asked to do it (that's one of the tactics someone
who wants something done for free will obviously use -- i.e. search for
someone else to do the work), but you need not feel obligated to do
anything more than reply with what you know about available resources.

Your job as portmaster, as I understand it, is to deal with kernel (and
possibly *system* compiler) issues, not add-on packages.  If portmasters
were responsible for all add-on packages not only would their job be far
too onerous for a volunteer position, but there wouldn't be any need for
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS either.

If some existing package, such as maybe PostgreSQL, didn't work on your
port and you didn't need it for your own personal use, would you feel
obligated to do the work to make it run for someone else?  If so, then
*WHY*?

Besides, in the case of CVSup the only people who will really want to
use it, at least initially, are people who are most likely capable of
doing the M3 port themselves, and are also people who are most likely
*not* restricted to running it on an unsupported machine (though some
might claim they are for political reasons! :-).

The pressure is on those who want to use the CVSup client to do the
porting themselves, or to find someone to do it for them.  If they do
the latter and put pressure on you, and you don't just let it bounce
off, then *that* is your problem.  You need to know how to manage
people's expectations or they'll simply expect everything of you.

Don't worry -- be happy!

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>