a no-homepage homepage for ports with dead homepages

[Jan Stary]

On Jan 12 11:12:17, raimue at macports.org wrote:
> On 2018-01-11 22:22, Jan Stary wrote:
> > On Jan 11 11:49:40, ken.cunningham.webuse at gmail.com wrote:
> >> I've been prospecting MacPorts errors reported by repology <https://repology.org/maintainer/nomaintainer%40macports.org/problems>. A common error is that the homepage 404s out.
> >>
> >> Many of these ports still work install correctly, but have no homepage, no homepage can seem to be found, and there is none on archive.org.
> >>
> >> Rather than just have it error out forever, I made this page in the spirit of the gentoo page:
> >>
> >> <https://trac.macports.org/wiki/NoHomePage>
> 
> I like the idea of the placeholder wiki page with a detailed explanation.
> 
> >> If that is acceptable, I'd like to use it, or some variation of it, for ports like biggersql, for example, to fix some of these errors.
> > 
> > What errors exactly will be "fixed" by that?
> 
> It documents that the upstream homepage is gone for good. That helps to
> understand this software is most likely a dead project.

Yes, but why set up a webpage for that?

> >> PS : Personally, I think asking users for a new homepage, if there is one, is better than just deleting the homepage variable requirement in Portfiles.
> > 
> > It might be useful to display a message when a port without a manpage is
> > installed, saying something like you put on the page above, but shorter:
> > 
> > 	$port does not have a manpage.
> > 	Please let $maintainer know if you know where it is.
> 
> This could add a lot of clutter,

So, two lines saying "this port does not have a homepage"
is "clutter", but an extra non-homepage is not?
How is it not the exact opposite?

> for example if a port is only installed as a dependency.

What difference foes it make whether a port without a homepage
is a dependency of something or not?

> I think the port notes should only contain information
> relevant to its usage.

Why? No realy: why do you think the port's notes should _not_
mention that the port does not have a homepage (yet an extra
non-homepage should be set up to say that)?

	Jan