On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Michael Haubenwallner
<haubi@g.o> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-03-25 at 00:30 -0500, Jeremy Olexa wrote:
>
>> So, since we are already in a hugely reactive mode..why don't we just
>> get rid of prefix keywords completely?
>
> Having the unstable keyword in an ebuild indicates that this package
> should work on that platform - or more exactly, a previous version was
> likely to at least compile there.
>
> When there are no keywords, prefix-users won't see if they would need to
> do a *new* port (or at least a test) for their platform or just to *fix*
> an existing port. IMO the difference is that if one does not really need
> a package, trying to *fix* might be a lower just-for-fun-barrier than to
> do it *new*.
>
>>  It gets hairy if the arch most
>> always needs patches (FreeMiNT/IRIX comes to mind). However, this is one
>> reason that we ask for everyone's help in submitting patches upstream.
>
> Dropping all keywords wont change anything here...
>
>> Before anyone says "but, that will be much more likely to break my
>> prefix" - I refute that because we are already running on this policy
>> with regards to the automatic bumps. For the most part, it is smooth.
>> Major packages are masked if someone hasn't tested them yet (eg. gcc & bash)
>
> Agreed, but I like my keywords ;)
>
> /haubi/


Ok, I'll stop pushing this idea but it was at least valuable in
exploring alternatives. Maybe in X months we can relook this issue and
see if it still makes sense, etc.

Thanks,
Jeremy