Re: "up to date at all costs" is a failed approach

[Thomas Klausner <wiz%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Sun, Jul 14, 2024 at 10:51:25PM +0000, nia wrote:
> it directly conflicts with pkgsrc's goal of being portable,
> and directly conflicts with supporting NetBSD well.
> 
> it results in frequent feature regressions.
> 
> everyone who spends time reading bulk build reports is burned
> out - there's no point working on improving things because the next
> major update to some third-party component will steamroll all
> the progress made.
> 
> people who want stuff up to date don't want to test on ~8
> different platforms and it's understandable. everything decays.
> pkgsrc's few niches suffer as a result and the whole platform
> becomes less attractive to use.
> 
> any plans?

I don't know what the proposal here is.

"Not updating packages" is easy - just keep using the pkgsrc-20XXQY
that builds enough packages on the platform you're interested in.

The goal of being portable can only be met if there are volunteers
that keep packages working on the platforms, just like we need
volunteers to keep NetBSD working on platforms (that get new hardware,
or for new features that get added to other operating systems).

I think the solution is to send more patches upstream so that the
packages will build by default on all platforms and the task of
keeping them buildable on a platform (in pkgsrc) is not such a special
case.
 Thomas