Re: long-broken packages (some are removal candidates)

[David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 11:32:18PM +0400, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
 > Some packages magically work for some people. Do you think that they
 > shouldn't use package just because it fails in bulk build?

No, although it prevents them from using a prebuild package. But they
certainly can't use it if it also fails when *they* try to build it.

As I've pointed out several times now just in this discussion, the
bulk build reports are what we have for quality control. Sometimes
unbuildable packages get reported in PRs; this is better than nothing
but bulk builds give vastly better coverage and reporting.

 > I don't understand why noone bothers that we have pbulk reports full of
 > failures on NetBSD 4, and when it comes to NetBSD 6 _beta_ everyone is
 > so concerned that we have a hundred of packages (around 1% of total number)
 > that don't build.

Because the only bulk builds run on netbsd-4 are on the stable branch,
which (particularly during the freeze for a new stable branch) lags
too far behind to be much use for quality control. Also, because most
people don't have netbsd-4 build machines at this point.

If you care about this, run pkgsrc HEAD bulk builds on netbsd-4, or do
incremental test builds like I have been doing on and off. Or persuade
someone with spare cycles to do it.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost