Future of DarwinPorts? (was Re: Release process (was Re: DarwinPorts 1.3.1))

On Aug 3, 2006, at 7:14 AM, Tabitha McNerney wrote:

> Long live Darwin Ports? Or is the intellectual curiosity bit bucket  
> knocking
> on its door?

A lot of this and related questions will probably be answered once  
OpenDarwin shuffles offstage and the various ports find their new homes.

But in regard to the future of the project, it sounds like some good  
hard questions are being asked about infrastructure issues, things  
that relate to reliability, reproducibility, and accountability.  
Reading over the back and forth between Mssrs Hubbard and Guyot, how  
will the decision be made to either quarantine the port building  
process in a chroot or allow it more access to a running system? Is  
there a mechanism for porters/committers to vote on this and other  
issues, since they are big stakeholders? It seems the chroot approach  
has a lot to recommend it, from what I understand of it.

I see a lot of energy in the dports process that I hope doesn't fade  
as result of the current instability. And while I sympathize with  
Jordan Hubbard's attempts to learn from other successes/failures  
(he's been doing this stuff a long time), I'm a believer in the old  
adage that the best is the enemy of the good. If the project's  
volunteers put off doing anything until the perfect solution can be  
built, nothing might get done at all. And whatever patches and  
makeshift steps people take will be looked down on as  since they  
aren't blessed as part of The Solution.

It might be best to let someone do something the "wrong way" if they  
can't be convinced otherwise (I have 2 practitioners of that, aged 7  
and 9). As long the consequences aren't too dire, it can have the  
desired educational effect. And if it's their problem to deal with,  
they can choose to adopt a better method or not.
--
Paul Beard
contact info: www.paulbeard.org/paulbeard.vcf

Are you trying to win an argument or solve a problem?