Excellent list,
ai-danno. But there are two more things that are helpful: become a
port tester, and then perhaps a
port maintainer. Both contributions are worthwhile.
If you're a -current user, subscribe to ports@ and test new revisions of older ports or new ports. You need not test everything; perhaps only those that are of interest to you personally.
Use the
Port Testing Guide, and respond with your results. You can respond privately or on the ports@ list as you prefer. This is a great way to learn about the ports tree and debugging of individual ports, as well as giving back to the community.
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If you have installed some unported, third party software and think others might have an interest in it, just build a port, using the
Porter's Handbook and the
Port Testing Guide, and submit it to ports@ for consideration.
However, you do need to be clueful about the application build process, the dependency chains, and debugging, so this is not for everyone.
And you must be willing to have your Email address published as $MAINTAINER and respond to queries from the community with your support.