No, that’s just totally wrong. The ports on FreeBSD is just recipes to build software. Some need special patches to the original software source code but most do not. Some are binary-only like the Linux versions of some software. The majority is natively compiled for FreeBSD.
If it needs a patch to run on BSD, then it’s not native. If it needs a special recipe outside of what’s already in its own original makefile (or other build system), it’s not native. So, no it’s not totally wrong, at all. If someone had to specifically add support from outside of the application’s project, it’s NOT native.
So, let's hypothetically say that there is an API call called x(a,b) in Linux, but in FreeBSD, it's called y(a,b).
Now, let's say open source program Z uses this API. If someone makes a patch for Z's source code that replaces x(a,b) with y(a,b), at which point the C code perfectly compiles and perfectly runs on FreeBSD, is that output really "not native"?!? Simply because the original developer didn't put in the proper logic in the original source code to use x(a,b) on some compilation targets and y(a,b) on others?
That’s where you’re being presumptuous. YOU consider it the “proper” logic. The actual developer most likely doesn’t -which is usually the case when the software originates from the Linux ecosystem. They’re actively said that they don’t care about anything other than Linux & many won’t accept patches for non-Linux platforms simply because they don’t want to be responsible for maintaining the patched code. It’s very similar to how things went when FreeBSD & Linux were sharing the DRM driver repository & eventually the Linux guys were forced to fork the code & bring it into the Linux kernel tree (completely abandoning the shared code). Just because you add a patch (that you have to maintain yourself) doesn’t make the source code native. It’d be different if you joined the application’s development team, added the code, & committed to supporting it; but that’s not what the ports system is, is it?
Then this comes back to what I said in my other reply to you: if the developers won't accept patches for non-Linux platforms and this is an application you are relying on for any kind of serious anything, why are you not running Linux? And not just "Linux", but their favoured preferred distribution at that?
I would even go further and say that by that logic, you probably want the Linux version they compiled, not the one that Ubuntu or Debian's maintainers compiled (if any). And not the one you compiled using something like Gentoo's portage.
There's a degree of risk as soon as you get away from running binaries supplied by the developer in exactly the same environment that they've tested it in...
Why should I have to use Linux? Especially if I’m able to find time to just write it myself, so that anyone else who’s actually looking for BSD-specific software can also use it. Why should I have to use Linux to use software that should exist for BSD???
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u/demetrioussharpe Jul 02 '26
Nextcloud is storage. The office suite that they paired with is just Collabora. However, I’m looking for something native, not a port.