tech-pkg archive


Reducing the number of patches in pkgsrc


pkgsrc wants to be a package system that distributes original software, as written by the upstream authors. That means that we should have as few patches as possible. Currently, the "worst" packages in terms of the number of patches are:

127  x11/xview-lib/patches
 95  x11/xview-clients/patches
 79  wip/xorg-server-snap/patches
 77  wip/molmol/patches
 72  parallel/glunix/patches
 64  wip/modular-xorg-server-mesa653/patches
 63  time/sunbird/patches
 63  www/firefox/patches
 61  editors/mule/patches
 61  www/seamonkey/patches
 59  www/firefox15/patches
 57  mail/elm-me/patches
 54  misc/openoffice2/patches
 51  parallel/pvm3/patches
 50  mail/thunderbird/patches
 50  mail/thunderbird15/patches
 47  net/irrtoolset-nox11/patches
 47  security/sfs/patches
 46  editors/emacs20/patches
 45  net/nasd/patches
 42  devel/gdb6/patches
 42  mail/nmh/patches
 42  net/pppd/patches
 42  sysutils/xentools3/patches
 42  x11/kdebase3/patches
 41  chat/icb/patches
 41  mail/yatsvrs/patches
 41  wip/tendra/patches
 38  net/net-snmp/patches
 37  net/samba/patches
 36  wip/openscep/patches
 35  mail/ja-mh/patches
 35  security/ssh2/patches
 34  lang/ocaml/patches
 34  news/knews/patches
 32  devel/pwlib/patches
 32  graphics/netpbm/patches

I think we should try to inform the upstream authors of these patches -- probably they just don't know that these patches exist.

To make things easier in the future, I'd like to have a variable SEND_PATCHES_TO in the package Makefiles, so that the patch authors don't need to spend a long time searching for the right address. That variable could contain a URL pointing to a mail address or a bug tracking system.


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