Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 11:13:43
Message-Id: CAGfcS_mkEx-YyQJHf2Rr9pcYe3NNxiFLX4phEPAHoLyy3B4QYg@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5 by Ciaran McCreesh
1 On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Ciaran McCreesh
2 <ciaran.mccreesh@××××××××××.com> wrote:
3 > On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:37:38 +0000 (UTC)
4 > Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net> wrote:
5 >> 1) Fact: Unfortunately, your method of argument, Ciaran, doesn't
6 >> endear you to a number of devs.  Some may have the impulse to reject
7 >> an argument simply because it comes from you.
8 >
9 > Perhaps Gentoo should be doing more to correct the attitudes of those
10 > developers, then.
11 >
12
13 This is an impression that many people get, unfortunately. You can't
14 fix it by beating people up. There are those who speak up from time
15 to time attempting to moderate, although to some extent this is noise
16 in what should be a technical discussion.
17
18 >
19 >> And if you /can/ get those statements, why are we still going round
20 >> and round with all this?
21 >
22 > That's a very good question. Why are people still blaming the PMS team
23 > for the lack of magical appearance of flying unicorns rather than
24 > making their case for the introduction of a horse?
25 >
26
27 Perhaps what is being missed is that THIS ISN'T A WATERFALL METHODOLOGY!!!
28
29 PMS is intended to be semi-retrospective - it is developed in parallel
30 with the features it documents. It is intended to preserve standards,
31 to be something to refer to before finalizing PM code, and to guide
32 ebuild writers. It isn't intended to be a conceptual
33 requirements/design spec to be included in the RFP for the coding team
34 in India.
35
36 So, the requirement is a reference implementation in one of the PMs.
37 So, the question of "who gets to decide it is easy" is simple -
38 whoever writes and releases the patch gets to decide. That can be you
39 if you write a full PM that handles all the existing EAPIs plus
40 whatever is new, or demonstrate some kind of commitment to maintaining
41 a fork.
42
43 Face it, there are only a handful of devs here doing PM work, portage
44 or otherwise. I can post all day on the list about how Gentoo OUGHT
45 to be able to do foo. I can post all day about how Gentoo NEEDS to do
46 foo and how it is downright obvious how not doing foo ruins the
47 reputation of Gentoo and is going to kill us in six months. None of
48 this is going to do anything unless I can convince/bribe/cajole one of
49 the devs working on a PM to implement foo, or, heaven-forbid, write it
50 myself.
51
52 Somebody asked earlier why Cirian is running the whole PMS process and
53 why Gentoo can't have its own GEAPI that will be peaceful and
54 harmonious. My answers to that are twofold:
55
56 1. While perhaps a different leader might give people a warmer
57 feeling about it, I think many of these issues are just inherent to
58 the nature of the problem - PM features don't write themselves.
59 Others might disagree, and that is fine.
60
61 2. I don't see anybody else stepping up. PMS is in git, so just
62 clone the thing and if you can convince some PM devs to follow you
63 there is no reason that a Gentoo dev couldn't take it over. I suspect
64 that many would like to see this happen. However, to be honest I
65 think that warm-and-fuzzies aside Cirian has actually done a fairly
66 good job with it as he is pretty passionate about PM specs. This is a
67 big commitment, and what isn't needed is somebody who is going to step
68 in to get their favorite feature in there and then let it die.
69
70 As far as helping others to create pms paperwork goes, there is no
71 reason this has to fall exclusively on Cirian. The fact that nobody
72 else is stepping up to help those who are new just reflects the nature
73 of something like this - FOSS projects tend to be weak on specs.
74
75 Bottom line - do I think Cirian might get himself further in life if
76 he deals with others a bit differently? Sure. Do I think that this
77 is the main thing keeping us outside of the golden land of PMS? Not
78 really.
79
80 Rich

Replies

Subject Author
[gentoo-dev] Re: My wishlist for EAPI 5 Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net>