Subject: Re: upcoming anniversary
To: NetBSD/pkgsrc-users <pkgsrc-users@netbsd.org>
From: Jeremy C. Reed <reed@reedmedia.net>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 04/30/2007 12:01:35
On Mon, 30 Apr 2007, Aleksey Cheusov wrote:

> > 5) Patches frequently are FreeBSD specific so can't be committed as-is by 
> > upstream official developers.

> Much better than nothing. I always get patches from Debian where they
> are often specific to Linux.

I think this is specific to your software. As I frequently find patches in 
Debian that are also not found upstream (for one reason or another). Often 
Debian packages become significant "forks".

> > 6) Patches seem to rarely be submitted upstream. A FreeBSD port may have 
> > fixed a generic problem years ago but appear to never adequately share 
> > their fix. (I have seen this several times over several years.)

> The same to pkgsrc. I'm upstream maintainer ;) Most bug reports and 
> suggestions was obtained from Debian people, some from OpenBSD, nothing 
> from pkgsrc.

Probably also specific to your software.

Sorry you were overlooked :) But since you are already here ... it is up 
to you to submit pkgsrc patches for your own software :)

By the way, I have probably submitted a couple hundred patches from pkgsrc 
upstream to various projects. Many are used but not all.

>  If somebody from pkgsrc people invite upstream
> maintainers to builk builds mailing list, things will probably change
> soon. ;) Pkgsrc has a uniq position, it has access so many hardware
> platforms and operating systems... IMHO bulk builds from different
> computing environment is one of the strongest side of pkgsrc, at least
> for developers interesting in developing a portable software.
> Unfortunately only two systems use pkgsrc as an official
> packaging system. As a result support for Linux, FreeBSD and others
> are much worse than for NetBSD and DragonFlyBSD.

Thanks for your comments!

  Jeremy C. Reed