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

Paul,

On Aug 3, 2006, at 3:05 PM, paul beard wrote:

>
> 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.

Yes. We've been working on this issue, and we hope to have some more  
conclusive direction on our future hosting choices, following WWDC.  
I'm quite excited about the life ahead for darwinports.

> 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 don't anticipate a formal vote. But opinions given to the list and  
well supported by good arguments usually prevail. Ultimately,  
however, there has to be people/persons with the desire and time to  
implement a given approach. The biggest hurdle we have to getting  
anything done is simply people with the time, capability, and desire  
to make it happen—while people may have all of those, they have to  
have them all in a certain conjunction of time.

> 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.

We certainly don't want to quash a fine idea that could be  
implemented, in favor of a perfect idea that never will be. On the  
other hand, we don't want the project to veer off in a direction that  
solves problems only for a small percentage of users.

James

> --
> Paul Beard
> contact info: www.paulbeard.org/paulbeard.vcf
>
> Are you trying to win an argument or solve a problem?
>
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