Dear CRUX developers,
Having the latest and greatest version of ports is the second most
important reason I've been using CRUX since almost two years now,
starting with one laptop, then a HTPC and finally a router/firewall.
Like many others, the main reason is CRUX's utmost simple and elegant
design.
I'm aware that CRUX developers' team is rather small, that some people
may be busy with real life and that they offer their work for free.
Please understand that I am *not* complaining in any way, I'm just
willing to share some thoughts that may help to facilitate the time
consuming, not always exciting task of packaging.
If some ports are behind the latest versions, I would imagine that's
because CRUX is lacking manpower. On the other hand, I understand that
CRUX can't accept any random user as a developer. Most of the time,
I've been updating ports by myself, on my machines, but I think it's
rather sad that 1. it can't benefit the whole community 2. it's a
duplicate effort as sooner or later, the official maintainer will
update those ports. I've been posting few patches on IRC or sometimes
sent them to maintainers by email but that is not always efficient
because if you're too busy to update your ports, you're most likely
too busy to review others' patches too. So I've been thinking about
the following:
What would you think about the creation of a community-patches-queue
git repo accessible by, well, CRUX community. This is how it could
work:
1. User U has updated port P on his machine, he would then commit a
diff patch to community-patches-queue (we could also make a ports repo
out of it and encourage people to use and test those ports but that's
another story)
2. One (or more?) CRUX developer, available at that time, would
volunteer to review and sign-off the patch.
3. Signed-off patches are sent to the official maintainer (or
committed to community-patches-acked) so he could review and apply
them or just apply them with peace of mind if he's too busy to review
them fully (or even let other devs apply them?)
Maybe that sounds too complicated for temporary situations but what I
can I say is that I'm willing to help (and I'm not the only one, for
sure). Sending patches to community-patches-queue would be a way to do
so.
Thanks in advance for your comments and wishing you all a pleasant Sunday.
Cheers,
-- Emmanuel
