# How to report a port as outdated?



## may (May 30, 2010)

One of the ports I use regularly (lang/newlisp) is slightly outdated and I was wondering what's the best and/or standard way to report this?

I could mail the maintainer or submit a problem report or some third option I am unaware of. (It'd be nice to be able to press a button to say "this port is outdated", but I could see that feature being abused.)

What's the best/standard way?

I apologize if I missed some obvious piece of documentation about this.


----------



## fronclynne (May 30, 2010)

I'd suggest sending the maintainer a friendly e-mail.  Something like, "Hello Generous Friend,  I have a financial proposition which will surely with the blessings of GOD and ADABAYO OGUNMENTO benefit us boathes . . ."  If he snaps back at you, be calm and remember, he may have heard exactly your question 6.022x10Â²Â³ times already today, so please show some consideration.


Addendum:  I'm sure stas@* isn't a raging whirlwind of retribution, so be kind & careful, but bold as snakes.



*[cmd=""]cd /usr/ports/lang/newlisp && make maintainer[/cmd]


----------



## may (May 30, 2010)

*laughs*  Haha, I gotcha.  Thanks for the info!


----------



## john_doe (May 30, 2010)

Maintainer can subscribe to RSS feed or maillist on portscout.freebsd.org (ports-mgmt/portscout) to track updates. I think just pinging is enough, he/she may be away.


----------



## may (May 30, 2010)

Hm.  I'm not seeing an option to ping them on portscount.freebsd.org.  Or did you mean via e-mail?


----------



## ckester (May 30, 2010)

As a port maintainer myself, I would appreciate an email letting me know if one of my ports is stale, or if you have an encountered some other problem with it.

But before you do that, please check the PR database to see if I've already submitted an update.


----------



## ckester (May 30, 2010)

may said:
			
		

> Hm.  I'm not seeing an option to ping them on portscount.org.  Or did you mean via e-mail?



portscout provides a way for the _maintainer_ to watch for new releases.  It's not a mechanism for users to contact maintainers.

Most of my own ports are also listed on freshmeat, and by subscribing to them there I get email notifications of new releases.  I also check the authors' websites every week or so, just in case an update didn't get picked up by portscout or freshmeat.  So I'm reasonably confident all of my ports are up-to-date.  (One exception is sysutils/rdup, where the only difference in the author's latest release is a bugfix I'd already included in my port.)

Some maintainers, however, are responsible for 50 or more ports.  I wouldn't expect them to be checking authors' websites as frequently as I do, so an email from a user might be a useful heads-up.

You should also be aware that when the maintainer is listed in the port Makefile as "ports@freebsd.org" it means there is no one who is personally maintaining it.  (On FreshPorts, it will say this explicitly.)  If you're interested in keeping the port updated and enjoy a challenge, the ports team encourages you to consider becoming the maintainer yourself.


----------



## may (May 30, 2010)

ckester said:
			
		

> But before you do that, please check the PR database to see if I've already submitted an update.



That's really useful, thank you!

Thanks everyone for the helpful and prompt replies.


----------

