> 	From looking at the activity of the "core" I'd say all they care
> 	about is x86. (and Alpha, because of Chris) All other ports are
> 	basically left swinging in the wind.

This is, to put it mildly, FALSE.

I'll let other port maintainers talk about what 'core' has done for
their ports, or how much we prod them, or whatever; i'm not going to
waste my time with it.


The primary responsiblity for ports is on the heads of their
maintainers.  if you have a problem with the way a maintainer is
maintaining a port, take it up with them.  if that doesn't get you
anywhere, take it up with 'core.'  if the maintainer happens to be a
member of 'core', that doesn't change.

the core group has always tried to be as hands-off as possible when it
comes to what port maintainers do with their ports.  There are several
reasons for this, some of which are:

	(1) micromanagement sucks, and, overall, hurts.

	(2) we have other, better things, to do, than tell people what
		to do with their ports, when we're unlikely to ever
		even have the hardware that they support,

	(3) there are several reasons to be a port maintainer;
		one is to gain experience and to reinforce one's
		ability to act on one's own.  It would be a shame for
		us to stifle it.

Don't forget, with a few exceptions (indeed, i think i'm the only
person to get paid hold a full-time position doing anything
netbsd-related, and even that is at the whim of my employersss; most
of the stuff i do is in my free time), EVERYONE working on NetBSD is a
volunteer.

Unless you're willing to actually produce code yourself, you shouldn't
throw stones too strongly.



If you have a grievance about how a port is being managed, then you
should take it up with the port maintainer, and then, as i said,
'core'.

Note, however, that saying "the sparc port should have theo's code in
it" isn't a valid complaint -- because theo's code has never been
offered to the sparc port's maintainer, to put in, as far as i know.
Theo doesn't seem to be willing to give out his sources -- even to put
them up for anon-ftp, as far as i can tell.  How can you complain that
we've not integrated his changes, when we can't even _get_ them.  Note
also that responding to that by saying: "well, _he_ should integrate
them" makes no sense -- if he were willing to give out the changes,
then why should he require that he _waste his own time_ integrating
them?  He won't send diffs -- he's already said that that's too much
work.  but if that's too much work, why does he want to do _more_ than
that?  It seems to me that theo can't claim to be acting from a
position of 'good faith' unless he's willing to distribute his sources
publically...






cgd