Re: [gentoo-dev] Testing is not a valid reason to package.mask

[Alec Warner]

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Jeroen Roovers <jer@g.o> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Oct 2008 04:23:33 +0200
> Dawid Węgliński <cla@g.o> wrote:
>
>> I don't think it's ok. ~arch isn't training ground. It's supposed to
>> work, so asking arch teams to keywords packages that are not supposed
>> to work isn't good.
>
> We have a "testing" branch and a "stable" branch, defined by the
> KEYWORDS variable in the ebuilds. Package.masking stuff saying you're
> "testing" is at the least uninformative and highly confusing and
> unfriendly to would-be testers when in the very same context this
> already means something different (namely, it's been too short a
> while, wait one or two months for this version to go stable, as the
> ~arch keywords would suggest).

~arch has always been for testing ebuilds; not packages.  You should
not be using ~arch to test stuff you know doesn't work; that is what
package.mask is for; to prevent users from accidentally installing
broken shit.

>
> The same term shouldn't be used to denote two ways of masking ebuilds,
> but that's beside the point of providing good reasons to package.mask
> ebuilds.
>

I completely agree that useful messages in package.mask are important.

-Alec

>> > Even saying that it would kill puppies would be more valid. Just be
>> > honest and tell people what is going on. Tell them that if they use
>> > Opera snapshots, they shouldn't care about losing mail or experience
>> > frequent crashes while browsing. Anything really, just don't tell
>> > them you're "testing" or you find yourself excluding them from the
>> > party with a really bad excuse.
>>
>> This is the place i agree with you. Anyway i think package still
>> should be p.masked with good explanation of why it is masked.
>
> Welcome to the starting point of this thread! ;-)
>
>
> Kind regards,
>     JeR
>
>