On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Chris Gilbert wrote:

> Out of curiosity what does the role of port-master actually entail?  I'm just 
> thinking it's worth making sure that the person (or persons, I believe some 
> ports have more than one port-master, we may have to do that) selected is 
> aware up front what they might have to do?  (although some of these things 
> are currently being done by others already, and maybe happy to keep doing so)

I don't know there's an official list, but I'll comment on what you've
said (mostly based on my experience):

> deal with PR's (which we have some that are over 2 years old, and may not be 
> of interest/applicable anymore)

True -- the portmaster is the person who's (by default) marked as
responsible for any PR against their port.

> Likely to be overseeing the splitting of the port up, unless that happens 
> before then.

OTOH after that, there will probably be one portmaster per (new) port.

> merging of new ports in (eg sa11x0 and hpcarm, unless those people get 
> developer accounts)

They should.  We shouldn't have significant bodies of code in the tree
without people to maintain them.  At least, not if there's a potential
maintainer around.

> sorting out developer accounts for people

Mostly the job of core and admins, actually.  All I've had to do is say
"Yes, I'll sponsor him".

> does the official releases on ftp site.

Actually, releases are usually built by someone else with lots of machines
of different architectures.  Portmasters usually just build snapshots.

> general maintenance work
> keeps the port up to date with the rest of happenings in the tree.
> drives the port to new things (eg upcoming hardware etc)
> keeps docs up to date

These are the main ones.  I suspect there's also a quality-control aspect
-- keeping an eye on what people are committing and making sure it's of a 
reasonable standard.

> organise stands at shows

Nah, you're doing a perfectly good job of that.  *grin*

> Perhaps I'm just being ignorant and there's a webpage somewhere that says 
> what they do?

I think the nearest thing is
<URL:http://www.netbsd.org/People/port-maintainers.html>.

-- 
Ben Harris                                                   <bjh21@netbsd.org>
Portmaster, NetBSD/arm26               <URL:http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/arm26/>