(My email host has decided to change its process recently and I've yet to
work around it so this post via their webmail interface lacks reply-to
headers etc., sorry)
Marc Espie writes:
> One thing Solene is right about: what does port maintainership means ?
>
> It means there's one person who cares deeply enough about the port that
> he's going to keep it (more or less) up-to-date and will be the go-to pe=
rson
> for changes to that port.
>
...
>
> The way Unix works, we got 5000+ ports that don't need much activity nor
> maintainership. Some of them might be somewhat out-of-date but this does=
n't
> have huge implications, security-wise.
>
...
>
> I think the main goal we should have is to get more people on-board.
>
> Face it: we are lagging behind badly when it comes to gettin more ports =
aboard.
>
...
>
> <tools>
I don't think the tooling is what's lacking.
Although I've not really contributed anything myself I have found
OpenBSD to be an excellent platform to develop on and, on the whole,
quite welcoming to contributions from anybody.
What it's not welcome to is complainers.
However the complainers are few and far between but when their
whining is rejected they get noisy and this gives OpenBSD a (IMO
undeserved) bad reputation, because they are dealt with swiftly.
OpenBSD is not at all unwelcoming, it is not (actively) inviting.
My perspective is that after learning computers in the 80s and 90s,
I picked up Linux, slowly got fed up with its poor engineering
and have mostly completely migrated to OpenBSD over the past 8-10 years.
=46rom this view I would say that there are two things newcomers don't
understand, and which OpenBSD does not address in terms they might
be able to understand (or take offense at the way they're presented):
1) Shut up and hack.
Your report of a problem is nice, thanks, but without an investigation
into the problem's cause that problem is yours. This isn't a helpdesk
it's a massive collection of curated free code. The maintainer of
the broken port/driver may get personally offended that THEIR! code
is BROKEN! and help you fix it; it may work for them just fine.
Newcomers expect something vaguely helpdesk-like and sometimes the
mailing lists even are but when they're not the awakening is rude.
2) We actually have manuals.
The more advanced newcomer expects to be able to google for an
answer to whatever trivial problem they've come up against which
solving is the raison d'=C3=AAtre of whichever program they're using.
OpenBSD rarely shows up in the results of course. Unfortunately
this user is also used to the idea that documentation is nonexistent,
out of date, referring to a missing online faq, etc. and consulting
it does not feature on their radar.
OpenBSD has excellent documentation, for users and developers.
In the event that the documentation is inadequate, the source code
is always clear and simple and provides the interested user with
an excellent, but unknown, opportunity to GOTO 1.
By way of example, there is occasionally call for OpenBSD to maintain
a database of reported bugs and whatever had been done to fix them.
The idea that there isn't such a database with all its attendant
patch and review tracking is as unthinkable as driving without
seatbelts in some circles so where's yours? OpenBSD on the other
hand expects that if a bug is affecting your life that you will
track it down and fix it (the maintainer would probably like to
help though) so what use is there in them keeping track of your
efforts?
Personally I find that OpenBSD is an excellent platform to develop
on and if it has a problem attracting new talent it is because it's
misperceived by people who are used to a neutered hand-holding
system that by gosh just *wants* to help them, or a shoddy one that
gets fixed by rebooting and praying.
I don't know what if anything should be done about this, clearly
people are welcome to contribute and people do. This has been my
two British pence on what hopeful users may experience when first
approaching OpenBSD.
Cheers,
Matthew
Slava Ukraina!
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