Re: [gentoo-dev] Proposed changes to how ebuilds are managed from newsletter.

[George Shapovalov]

On Tuesday 29 April 2003 12:24, Mark Gordon wrote:
> > * These thematic groups are not intended to replace or even
> > necessarily align with Portage categories. Portage categories are a
[skipped]
> Since these categories don't align with the portage categories, I assume
> the package will specify which category it belongs to in place of the
> maintainer field?
The implementation details have not been settled yet. Though it is quite 
likely that this information will be stored mostly server-side (probably with 
an option to query for it).

> > this proposal sounds good from the developers side .. but shows very
> > little leeway for user contributed interaction which from reading many
[skipped]
> Perhaps users should say if they are prepared to maintain a package when
> they submit the ebuild, and if they are and no other developer is
> interested they can be considered as a junior maintainer?
Well, it is important to understand that this rerganization mostly concerns 
the developer side, as was pointed out in the text (and mentioned today by 
Dan Armak).
This has to settle first, before we will be able to proceed to implementing 
any user-side changes, as that clearly depends on inner organization. However 
the ideas of how to ease the ebuild processing are discussed as well. If you 
look at the featured dev section and follow the link to that bug ;) (I am 
talking about GWN, since this thread seem to have started off it, but just in 
case, that's #1523), you'll see such approach proposed. Parts of that has 
already made it into portage (KEYWORDS, gentoo-stats/stable, the latter ones 
are actually revamped to interoperate and scale better, but are nonetheless 
in function!).

> > I also think users can be used a lot better to do little things that
> > developers needn't have to do .. but end up doing anyway, like looking
> > for latest versions of packages already in the portage tree. This
[skipped]
> > Maybe be a little more clear on how users will interact with
> > developers in the ebuild system will help since users are very keen on
> > helping with ebuilds.
> Perhaps also have a way for users to register that they are monitor a
> package, so developers can decide to spend less time checking for
> updates on packages where several users are also checking?
Yep, that's the idea. In fact large part of this user-dev interaction is going 
to be covered by the dev-side reorganization. As soon as the 
maintainer/developer/watcher positions are split and finalized we will start 
calling for users to fill in in the places where there is a shortage. As you 
can guess we cannot do this just now, before this stuff gets settled..

And thanks for the interest, this is what makes gentoo bettter!

George

--
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list