MacPorts Status

[Marc Wilson]

But that’s not what HE said.  He disagreed with you.

For myself, I don’t need reasons not to use Homebrew.  I’d need reasons TO use Homebrew.

MacPorts does what I want in the way that I want it.  What else does it need to do?

-- 
Marc Wilson
posguy99 at gmail.com


On Sat, Jun 11, 2022, at 1:53 PM, Michele Venturi wrote:
> That's what I said, no coherence or coordination.
> So what are your reasons to not use HomeBrew?
> 
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 22:40 Jim DeLaHunt <list+macports-dev at jdlh.com <mailto:list%2Bmacports-dev at jdlh.com>> wrote:
>> Hello, Jordan:
>> 
>> Welcome (back to) MacPorts!
>> 
>> I am nobody official with the project. I just try to make contributions 
>> to a few ports and documentation pages where I can. But in this project, 
>> lots of people contribute, each in their own way.
>> 
>> On 2022-06-11 07:07, Jordan via macports-dev wrote:
>> > Hi friends,
>> > 
>> > 
>> > First of all thank you for your work! I use MacPorts exclusively for a 
>> > few different reasons and am looking to contribute to the project....
>> 
>> I for one would be glad to have your contributions.
>> 
>> > There is one aspect of MacPorts that has me a little down in the dumps 
>> > and that's is its _apparent_ (but likely not true) neglected state. I 
>> > think it's perhaps under maintained currently due to a lack of 
>> > people-power? I say so because I'd love to see more people using 
>> > MacPorts so I wonder if there's any "modernisation" (for lack of a 
>> > better word) to be had here? ... so perhaps some usage compared to 
>> > things like Homebrew can be gained back since I'd love to see this 
>> > project used more.
>> 
>> I think it is not fair to say MacPorts overall is in a neglected state. 
>> Its core purpose is to help people compile a wide range of freely 
>> available software on the macOS platform. As part of that it helps 
>> gather the related software needed to make the requested software work. 
>> I think that this aspect of MacPorts works very well. It gets a lot of 
>> care and attention. There is a lot of activity. For instance, I just 
>> moved onto an M1 Mac, and I see a lot of support for compiling software 
>> with the M1 CPU's architecture. That is the opposite of neglect.
>> 
>> Now, certain aspects of the project are neglected.  You mention the 
>> timeline on Trac. That's a page of documentation.
>> 
>> When you say "modernisation", I think you mean, changes to how MacPorts 
>> work to make it easier or better for some audience. I think that is best 
>> approached as a collection of small projects, each with a specific 
>> understanding of a problem, and its own goal for an improvement. One way 
>> to proceed is to start a macPorts-dev thread for each of these ideas 
>> (and each with a different Subject: line, please).
>> 
>> You mention believing that `sudo` probably scares new users. Maybe so, 
>> maybe not. A first step is to gather some evidence whether this is true. 
>> A next step is to figure out why the port tool requires use of `sudo`. A 
>> third step is to figure out what alternative way the port tool could 
>> work which does not require `sudo`.  For my part, use of `sudo` is no 
>> problem at all. MacPorts is a command-line tool for system maintenance. 
>> I am used to system maintenance tools requiring administrator passwords. 
>> `sudo` is a command-line way of requiring a password.
>> 
>> I will also say that competing with Homebrew about which project has 
>> more users is not very interesting to me. Homebrew works well for some 
>> people. MacPorts works well for some people. I'm interested in helping 
>> MacPorts be the best MacPorts it can be. If Homebrew ends up with more 
>> users, that is no big deal to me.
>> 
>> > Also, as a tacked-on issue I am working on...
>> 
>> I suggest you start a separate email thread for each issue. If you try 
>> to discuss deleting files on uninstall as part of a thread with the 
>> Subject: of "MacPorts status", which was originally about your offer to 
>> help, I suspect you will lose a lot of readers.
>> 
>> Anyhow, I look forward to seeing you in the email list, and in the trac 
>> tickets, and in the Pull Requests!  Glad to have your help.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>>      —-Jim "just another MacPorts user/contributor" DeLaHunt
>> 
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