Ports and packages summit – BSDCan 2012

May 9, 2012: 11:00-12:00, 13:00-14:30, and 15:00-16:00 EDT; DMS 1160

[note: please coordinate edits to this page with chaircreature MarkLinimon.]

• ThomasAbthorpe (portmgr)
• DianeBruce
• SeanBruno (clusteradm Y!, rant monger)
• BaptisteDaroussin (portmgr/pkgng/poudriere)
• BradDavis (clusteradm)
• BeatGaetzi (portmgr)
• JulienLaffaye (pkgng)
• ErwinLansing (portmgr, FreeBSD Foundation)
• MarkLinimon (portmgr)
• WarnerLosh (core, gadfly) (if attending)
• PeterLosher (mirror)
• SimonNielsen (so, clusteradm)
• AndrewPantyukhin
• IonMihaiTetcu (portmgr - skype)
• FlorentThoumie (portmgr - skype)
• RobertWatson (core, FreeBSD Foundation)
• SteveWills
• BjoernZeeb (cluster issues)

The FreeBSD project has provided prebuilt ready-to-install binary packages for many years on a best-effort basis. While these packages do work in a large number of cases, there are too many inconsistencies and failure combinations, from the unpredictable update frequency to dependency handling across upgrades, for them to be used on a wider scale. This session centers on a round-table brainstorm that begins with a summary of the tremendous progress made in the last 12 months, and closes with a discussion of the roadmap on how to improve binary package creation, distribution, installation and upgrading.

See also 2011's slides for some background.

(note: slides are currently being written and their order may change.)

This session is intended to cover the current tasklist, including both what has changed in the last 12 months since the previous BSDCan, and a brief summary of what we think we can do by the end of the year. Due to the amount of information we need to present, this session will be structured; attendees will be asked to wait for the third session to go into blue-sky proposals. This session is appropriate for all developers.

• The Pointyhat build clusters. Presenter: MarkLinimon.
• The redports distributed tinderbox system. Presenter: MarkLinimon.
• Ports on FreeBSD 10. Presenter: MarkLinimon.
• Ports and clang. Presenter: MarkLinimon.
• pkgng. Presenter: BaptisteDaroussin.

This session is intended to cover what we think we can do by the end of the year. This session will be structured; attendees will be asked to wait for the third session to go into blue-sky proposals. This session may be most appropriate for the key ports developers.

• package sets. presenter: ErwinLansing.
• VCS switch to svn. presenter: BeatGaetzi.
• status of next-generation options code, optionsNG. Presenter: BaptisteDaroussin.
• status of “switchable ports compiler” task. presenter: MarkLinimon.
• Content Distribution Network. Presenter: ErwinLansing.

The first part is intended to be somewhat structured:

• Common complaints
• Wantlist

The remainder of the time is unstructured:

• Brainstorming session.

(anyone want to take up the topic of ports cross-compilation?)

• inconsistent OPTIONS throughout the tree
• distribution – ftp mirroring
  • disk space
  • syncing
• inconsistent package sets
• no concept of what is a “set”
• no QA across ports, only individual ports
• manual log analysis