Updating tint2 port/package

[shep]

I use tint2 as a panel with OpenBox for my desktop and noticed that it was a Google Summer of Code project from 2009. The upstream author added additional features (Launcher) which has been available for several years.
Tint2 Configuration

My sense is the svn code is fairly stable as it has been incorporated into Debian testing (Wheezy) with only one warning patch about the configuration wizard not being able to save. ArchBang and CrunchBang are also using the svn release.

I emailed the OBSD port maintainer to see if there was any intent to update. The maintainer is active and busy (In a Ph.D program and maintains multiple ports) and I am going to give him a couple of weeks before re-emailing with an updated port.

With that background my question;

If I were to try to upgrade the port myself, after studying the porter's handbook, it looks easiest to pull the svn source and the patch from the Debian repositories. Otherwise subversion would become a build dependency. Is this acceptable or does the community prefer to get the original source?

[jggimi]

The ports tree infrastructure does not support source extraction from repositories (svn, git, cvs, ...). Source must be extracted from a downloaded distribution file archive. If the upstream project does not package releases in this fashion, the $MAINTAINER must do so.

In this case, tint2-0.11 is the most recent tarball packaged by the project. If you were the maintainer, your choice would be to either succeed with a request to the the upstream project to host another release tarball for download, or, package and host it yourself. However, the second option would be creating your own release or a snapshot of current development. As it would be unofficial, it may be rejected for ports tree commit unless there was a clear and compelling need (such as the upstream project being disbanded).

As you are not the maintainer, but only an interested party, you could certainly contact the developers and ask them to consider hosting an updated tarball. It's their choice whether to issue a new release or not. If they do this, you can update the port and submit it to the maintainer for review. With no response after a week or two, you could submit it to ports@ for consideration.

The other choice -- hosting your own tarball within your $DISTFILE directory without an upstream release -- would only be practical for a personal port. Copy /usr/ports/x11/tint2 to /usr/ports/mystuff/x11/tint2 and update to your heart's content.

[shep]

I did not realize that OpenPorts.se allows searching by Master site. I was able to find several ports that pull the source from Debian servers.
pdmenu
pdmenu master site/git
I will email the upstream project to see if they can put together a release - the svn code is getting wide use.
This also looks like it could become a larger issue. I have Via all-in-one that uses xf86-video-openchrome and the release server has been down for months - source is only available by git.

[J65nko]

For handling git you can follow the advice given in http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m=135835567914881&w=2