[MacPorts] #51799: add a concept of 'distributions' for ports that work on specific older architectures

[MacPorts]

#51799: add a concept of 'distributions' for ports that work on specific older
architectures
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  Reporter:  kenneth.f.cunningham@…  |      Owner:  macports-tickets@…
      Type:  enhancement             |     Status:  new
  Priority:  Normal                  |  Milestone:
 Component:  base                    |    Version:  2.3.4
Resolution:                          |   Keywords:
      Port:                          |
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Comment (by ryandesign@…):

 We barely have the manpower to correctly maintain our existing single
 collection of ports; we certainly don't have the manpower to maintain
 separate distributions for different versions of Mac OS X (or, as has been
 requested elsewhere, stable and unstable distributions). What would happen
 is that developers would update the latest and greatest port collection,
 while the other port collections would not receive timely updates. The
 consequence would be that users using those other port collections would
 receive unnecessarily outdated or buggy software. Instead, I would like to
 keep our single distribution, and update ports and fix bugs as they're
 found.

 We do provide frozen port collections every time we release a new major
 version of MacPorts. They're in the
 [https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/ download directory] and have
 names ending with "-archive". However, there are no guarantees with these
 frozen port collections that they work on any particular version of Mac OS
 X, which is the same situation as our live up to date ports collection.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/51799#comment:1>
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