Re: platform-specific patches

[Ismael Luceno <ismael%iodev.co.uk@localhost>]

On 30/Dec/2024 13:54, Brook Milligan wrote:
> >> I also expect that supporting platform-specific patches within
> >> pkgsrc would be a more straightforward, and general, solution.
> > 
> > I'm not so sure it's sustainable, through history many GCC ports have
> > died because of this approach, why would it be different within pkgsrc?
> > (it may be even worse if we don't align with other communities)
> 
> Fair point.  Perhaps there are no other packages that require
> platform-specific patches, in which case this is not needed.

I didn't study it in detail, but I have quite some anecdotic evidence
on selective patch application making maintenance much worse over the
long term because of conflicts with bug fixes, and it gets worse
over time especially if you want to bootstrap from newer versions; so
it's all about how long these patches need to be around, but if the
patches can be applied unconditionally then that's a non-issue.