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On Friday 25 April 2003 08:10, Peter Fein wrote: |
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> > > I was wondering about having several portage trees to allow external |
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> > > distributor having repositories of packages. |
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> I think a note saying "DON"T DO THIS UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE |
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> DOING", as is done elsewhere would suffice. Given the recent volume on |
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> ebuild approval, that's not much of an counter-argument. I agree that |
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> inclusion in Gentoo-proper is a worthy goal - but as a user, not being |
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> restricted to blessed packages should be my choice (and of course, no one's |
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> under any obligation to support any of this to begin with, but it's worth |
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> discussing). Maybe I'm less scared of stability issues running Gentoo on a |
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> home box that could erupt into flames without causing me much distress, but |
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> this should be a matter of choice, rather than a policy enforced by |
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> software. Such a scheme may actually speed up package acceptance, as it |
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> provides a wider test base prior to inclusion. |
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While I agree that providing the option for users to easily get a hold on |
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"unapproved" ebuilds is nice and goes along the lines of gentoo phylosophy |
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(to allow user break his system as he wishes ;), provided the usual |
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disclamer) I do not think separate branch is an answer or even a good idea at |
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all. |
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Granted, debian and pretty much every large binary distribution have brancesh, |
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but bear in mind that they are exactly this: binary distribution. We are |
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talking about much stricter (and in that respect contradicting) goals and |
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central amintaince of these branches. Now, because of higher flexibility |
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central maintaince is not really an option in our case and actually goes |
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completely against the purpose of this proposed branch... |
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(I personally don't thunk we need branches even for specialized stuff. We have |
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a very flexible mechanism - profiles - in place that allows to form a very |
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specialized distribution off the general tree) |
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|
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So, lets talk about user-land. |
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If you are talking about this seriously, you should consider the amount of |
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ebuilds you will have to sotre and process and what work is involved and what |
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kind of "service" are you going to provide. |
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My estimate is that you can easily get 500+ ebuilds if you just go through |
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bugzilla (I just quickly searched for "new" in the subject) and eventually |
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the number will hit the range of thousands. So, do you want to just pile them |
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all up in a loooong list? You will have to do some kind of processing and |
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arrangement on all these ebuilds. |
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|
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Lets see: Joe User wants to see what's available in this "freaky" stuff he |
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heard so much about on some topic. I can imagine him going like that: |
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"Oh, there was some noise recently on creating that freaky-branch, should be |
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cool to see what's in there. What? Its like 1000+ ebuilds there, how am I |
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going to make sence of it ever. Did these guys set-up a search engine yet? |
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Fortunately they did (because it's been half a year into this project |
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already :)). Well, I found some stuff, I'ts good they also copied all the |
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bugzilla correspondence here, so that I can have some idea on what's the |
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status of this ebuild! But wait, I remember somebody announcing a really neat |
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thing few weeks ago on -dev, why don't I see it here. How can some people be |
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so inconsiderable as not to use this freaky-branch stuff? Sure I know its in |
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bugzilla, but it is sooo boring to go there and search, even though not any |
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harder..." |
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|
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Sorry for this improvisation, too much imagination I guess :). |
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|
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Anyway, my point is, if you want to make this even remotely usefull you will |
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have to provide quite a bit of service other than just piling ebuilds up on |
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some page. What's more, I think it is quite essentiall to provide a |
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possibility of feedback and appropriate ebuild tagging (unless you want to |
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test all these ebuilds for stability and correctness yourelf, but in this |
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case I will start quietly pointing that rectuiters address to you ;)). And |
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somehow all this reminds me of bugs.gentoo.org already ;). |
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|
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As you can see I have strong feelings about this type of branching, I hope |
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this serves as an explanation. I apologise to anybody who thinks I was too |
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harsh in this comment. |
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|
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So, what instead? Can I point you and everybody interested in the direction of |
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#1523 again ;)? |
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Sure, that bug is lengthy and quite involved, so not many people actually get |
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through. However I do not see any easy way to go about it. Yes, it *is* |
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complex, just what I tried to briefly illustrate and I did not even mention |
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any security considerations (without which it's not gonna be approved by |
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majority of developers), and possible and IMHO quite required automation.. |
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|
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Yes, that bug was around for like ages already. But if you read it carefully |
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you will realise, that some major infrastracture changes have already taken |
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place (most of that was written when there were no KEYWORDS and |
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gentoo-stable/stats for example). We are undergoing another infrastructure |
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rewamp atm and as soon as it gets near completion I will start updating that |
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bug again (it doesn't make sence to do so before some organizational issues |
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are finalized). |
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|
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On a final note I just want to solicit some patience and faith in developers. |
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We do acknowledge the problem and we are trying to address it. Don't forget |
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that we are talking about core infrastructure changes here and it always |
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takes time, especially if we want to stay alive during them :). |
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|
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Post final note :). As always, discussion and contributions in other forms are |
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wellcome! |
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|
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George |
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|
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-- |
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