RFE: poor-quality, outdated upcc port should be deleted

[bonachead@…]

I'm the lead architect on the Berkeley UPC project at LBL.

Without our knowledge or consent, mww@… created a Berkeley UPC port on OpenDarwin/MacPorts, and accompanying hostname at: http://upcc.darwinports.com/

We appreciate the enthusiasm for our project, but I'm afraid this port is a bad idea, and has been poorly executed.

Besides being quite out of date, this port lacks some important features that typical users will want, and implies a dependency on OpenMPI which is pointless.

We already painstakingly maintain a source and binary release of our software for OSX on our primary download page:

http://upc.lbl.gov/download/binaries.shtml#apple

which is updated immediately upon new releases, offers a disconnected translation option the OpenDarwin version lacks, and installs both debug and opt versions of the compiler software using a mechanism which is not currently included in our source download.

I believe the correct solution is to simply delete the OpenDarwin/MacPorts port - it's redundant and lower-quality than what the user can (and should) download for themselves at our web site.

I've attempted to contact mww@… through private email and received no response for over a week. Please delete the upcc port.

[markd@…]

Assign to maintainer.

[pmq@…]

[Disclaimer: I'm not mww, so what do I know]

I'm just wondering what you're talking about when you're saying "Without our knowledge or consent"; I've quickly read through your website, and I've seen that the licensing seems to be part BSD, part GPL. I don't see where your consent is needed.
Second thing is, you seem to be thinking that OpenDarwin and MacPorts are equivalent terms. They aren't.
Third thing is, darwinports.com is a rogue site. We (as a project) have no control over it.

So, I'd probably advise you to tell us how to improve our port, or just deal with it.

[bonachead@…]

I'm just wondering what you're talking about when you're saying "Without our knowledge or consent"; I've quickly read through your website, and I've seen that the licensing seems to be part BSD, part GPL. I don't see where your consent is needed.

It's not a licensing question - our license is BSD, so everything is legal (provided the copyright is preserved). It's just a question of courtesy and reputation - I don't like to see our software represented in a poor manner, and it would have been nice for the maintainer to at least talk to us about his intentions before posting the port. It's even more annoying he setup a hostname for it at darwinports.com and is unresponsive to our queries about it.

Given the availability of a superior binary port on our website, the user is probably better off without the MacPorts/DarwinPorts version at all, which just misleads them into thinking they're getting a "good" version, and wastes the user's time.

So, I'd probably advise you to tell us how to improve our port,

Delete it - it's redundant and subsumed by the available binary release (which also installs much faster).

[pmq@…]

> It's even more annoying he setup a hostname for it at darwinports.com and is unresponsive to our queries about it.

You should re-read my post. I'm explicitly stating he didn't setup an hostname for it, as this domain is controlled by someone we have no contact with.

[bonachead@…]

According to DNS, upcc.darwinports.com is an A record pointing to a virtual host on www.darwinports.com, which lists mww@… as the maintainer.

I'm not sure why you consider DarwinPorts to be a "rogue" site - I realize MacPorts and DarwinPorts are different sites, but DarwinPorts apparently no longer has a functional bug database (claims to have migrated to MacPorts), and the same portfile from mww@… has apparently been migrated to MacPorts:

http://trac.macports.org/projects/macports/browser/trunk/dports/lang/upcc/Portfile

I'd like to request deletion of all/any versions of this poor-quality port that are under your control.

[markd@…]

There are many ports in MacPorts that have binary equivalents from the developers because of the advantages building from source can provide. However, sometimes there is no particular advantage, and even a disadvantage, sometimes having to do with developer practices and sometimes for other reasons. We have deleted ports in the past that have become outdated compared to the binary revisions because there should be a presumption that our ports are in good working condition to continue to exist, unless no alternatives are available. I think you are saying that the MacPort is building from a generic source tarball rather than an OS X specific tarball that you provide, the latter of which could be made into a MacPort equivalent to the binary and acceptable from your point of view. Correct me if I am wrong in my understanding. It seems to me the main point for you isn't mainly about asking permission, which we don't normally do and I'm not aware any other developers have objected, but one of usability and user experience, which is the reason for being of the MacPorts project.

But since mww has not been active for awhile, and is not available to improve the port to satisfy you (if my understanding is correct that this is feasible), and since there is no one else volunteering to do so it seems like the issue is largely mute at this point. As I said, I think most of the MacPorts community are of the view that we shouldn't maintain an inferior and outdated MacPort port in comparison to a binary without some special reason.

But the darwinports.com site has no connection whatever to darwinports and now macports. It would be as if CNN bought domain cnn.com and before they realized they should buy cnn.org to protect the brand name someone else snapped it up with no connection and started their own news site trying to gain the benefits of a similar name. That is the situation with darwinports.com. Only it is even worse in our case because they mirror much of our actual information. That was one of the stated benefits to going the name change to macports (certainly not the only one), because I think we got all the common domain suffixes so this couldn't happen. If we delete the MacPort port we have no control over whether darwinports.com will also remove it. I suppose they do to keep their information consistent with ours in their role as copycats, but I don't know and have never checked and the entire macports community just wishes the darwinportgs.com site would spontaneously combust.

Anyway, under the circumstances and based on a message about this to the developer mailing list I think people seem willing to comply with your request if no one is willing or able to improve the port. I guess the question remains whether you'd approve of an improved and up-to-date upcc MacPort port if someone finds a reason to do one in the future, and if not whether we should or should not honor such a request if we disagree on technical merits.

[markd@…]

Deleted port. Closing ticket.