Stable tree

[lhunath@…]

As a Mac user, I like to know my system "just works", unfortunately, while this holds true for most of my native applications; MacPorts has always seemed like the sore thumb. When I do get most of my applications to a version where they seem to sit happily, I'm almost afraid of running port selfupdate.

Whenever I do a large update after some months, there are pretty much always packages that either don't compile or have other issues such as runtime problems.

Perhaps we should consider providing a stable branch/tree, to address the permanent state of brokenness which is inherent of the way MacPorts currently works and is being maintained.

This could be addressed by maintaining a stable tag for each package that gets updated only if for a certain amount of time no bugs have been filed against it, or some such.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Unless you and half a dozen or more other people are volunteering to maintain it, this just isn't feasible.

[lhunath@…]

Is it truly such an extra burden that the port's maintainer can't take care of it, in the same manner as he would keep the package up-to-date?

Most of this process can even be automated in the manner that I specified. The only issue I see is keeping versions of different packages in stable attuned. I understand that today, dependencies involve port names but not versions? If they do (or would) include versions, then even that issue is out of the way.

[blb@…]

It would require a potential doubling of support (stable and unstable) depending on how it all would work (and also note that many ports are currently unmaintained as it is). Also, sure some can be automated, but someone is going to need to write that code to do the automation first.