support for older versions of Solaris (was: pkg/47943 ...)

[Jörn Clausen <joern.clausen%uni-bielefeld.de@localhost>]

Feel free to change the list of recipients further, but I don't think 
this needs to be recorded in the PR...

>   - I am reliant on users of older releases to point out where we have
>     broken things and to help us to resolve these problems.  "You broke it,
>     you fix it" is not helpful as I do not have the means necessary to fix
>     it.

As I said: I am no developer, I am a sysadmin - and seldom the user of 
the packages I install, because I install them on behalf of other users. 
I don't have the knowledge, skills and especially the insight into the 
sources of a package I expect a package maintainer to have. And if the 
package has no maintainer, read "the last person to change the package" 
in the preceding sentence.

One possible variation of "you broke it, you fix it" is to revert to a 
previous version of a package, that was known to work for all parties 
involved.

> Broken packages can simply be determined by results
>     sent to the pkgsrc-bulk list and will therefore remain current rather
>     than stagnate (we still have some open since 2005).

No. I have to check my share of open PRs, but there are some that are 
not build errors, but the software simply doesn't work. And there is not 
the single build environment for Solaris:

- native as/ld or GNU binutils?
- lang/gcc? (gcc34, gcc4*)? standalone GCC? Sun Studio?
- i86 or sparc?
- not to mention of course Solaris 8/9/10/11, Illumos, SmartOS

The bulk builds are probably a good instrument, but they can't tell the 
whole story - by far.

>   - It would be fantastic if we could get either:
>
>     - regular pbulk runs from yourselves, or
>     - access to older systems (Joyent provide access to a SmartOS machine
>       for pkgsrc developers).
>
>     to dynamically pick up these regressions.

Sorry, we don't have the resources to do bulk builds, and we can't 
provide access.

I am more than willing to work together with whoever wants to fix a bug 
I have found. But as you pointed out by the number of open PRs on 
solaris-pkg-people, it's seldom that I even get a reply. For example:

-  pkg/47867, where I did include a patch.

-  pkg/47866, a fix was discussed on the nmap list and could easily be 
integrated in pkgsrc.

- pkg/47191 contains a fix.

This is the list of local patches I need to compile my selection of 
packages. This does not include changes to pkgsrc Makefiles. I have 
opened PRs for most of them, but nobody cared to pick them up:

patches/security/gnutls/patch-doc_Makefile.in
patches/security/pgp2/systemc-removefunc.diff
patches/security/gnome-keyring/gckrpcdaemonstandalonec-no-err-on-solaris.diff
patches/misc/multitail/makefile-no-libutil.diff
patches/misc/multitail/mth-other-curses.diff
patches/x11/xproto/Xfuncproto_restrict.diff
patches/x11/xorg-cf-files/sunLib-tmpl.diff
patches/x11/qt4-libs/patch-qglobalh-visibility.diff
patches/mail/thunderbird/nsBidicpp-conflicting-defines.diff
patches/mail/mutt-devel/revert-mvchgat-crap-1.diff
patches/mail/mutt-devel/revert-mvchgat-crap-2.diff
patches/graphics/p5-GD/patch-MakefilePL-noiconv.diff
patches/graphics/babl/xmlinsertsh-usebash.diff
patches/graphics/graphviz/config_perl-rpath.diff
patches/graphics/ImageMagick/patch-magick_method-attribute.h
patches/graphics/cairo/patch-configure
patches/graphics/cairo/patch-src_cairo-compiler-private.h
patches/graphics/cairo/patch-util_cairo-script_cairo-script-private.h
patches/graphics/cairo/uint128-gcc34-bug-sparc.diff
patches/graphics/openexr/patch-IlmImf_ImfSystemSpecific.h
patches/www/ap-php/patch-configure-visibility.diff
patches/www/neon/patch-src_Makefile.in
patches/sysutils/dbus/patch-dbus_sd-daemon.h
patches/fonts/harfbuzz/patch-configure
patches/fonts/harfbuzz/patch-configure.ac
patches/fonts/harfbuzz/patch-src_hb-private.hh
patches/fonts/harfbuzz/patch-ucdn.h
patches/fonts/harfbuzz/patch-src_hb-icu-le_letest.h
patches/devel/doxygen/Makefile.in-nodoc.diff
patches/devel/xxdiff/patch-src_resources.inline.h
patches/devel/xxdiff/makefile-add-solaris-libs.diff
patches/devel/xxdiff/resourcescpp-fix-diff-cmd.diff
patches/devel/pth/patch-pth-config.in
patches/print/xpdf/XPDFViewer-cc-cast.diff
patches/lang/parrot/experimentalops-sunassembler.diff
patches/net/p5-SOAP-Lite/patch-lib_SOAP_Lite.pm
patches/net/nmap/patch-ncat_ncat__main.c
patches/net/nmap/patch-ncat_ncat__connect.c
patches/net/nmap/patch-ncat_util.c

--
 Jörn Clausen                             
joern.clausen%uni-bielefeld.de@localhost
 Hochschulrechenzentrum                 http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/hrz/
 Universität Bielefeld