[gentoo-dev] Re: avoiding urgent stabilizations

[Duncan]

Paweł Hajdan, Jr. posted on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:02:36 +0100 as excerpted:

> On 2/7/11 9:50 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
>> My suggestion, as I said to fosdem, is to freeze, or take a
>> snapshot if you like, of the current tree, stabilize what you need to
>> stabilize, test the whole tree ( at least compile wise ) for a couple
>> of weeks and then replace the existing stable tree. Of course this
>> requires automated script testing, hardware facilities etc etc that we
>> don't have so claiming that stable tree is "stable" is quite wrong.
>
> This more thorough testing sounds really interesting. But do we really
> lack hardware resources?

Disclaimer:  I run ~arch (plus choice unmasks/overlays where ~arch is 
already unsuitably outdated for my tastes), so this doesn't affect me 
regardless.  That said...

The above suggestion sounds to me like increasing the bureaucracy and 
hassle of stabilizing packages even more.  We already have trouble with 
outdated stable, especially on some archs.  Do we /really/ want the 
reputation of competing with Debian-stal^hble for staleness?

Every few years someone comes up with the idea of creating a /truly/ 
stable, aka "enterprise" keyword/branch/whatever.  Every few years, it 
doesn't happen, for both resource and (arguably) philosophical reasons.

IMO, that's simply not suitable for or compatible with "mainline" Gentoo 
and its rolling updates, etc.  Yes, it's possible to do it.  A lot of 
things are "possible", but that doesn't mean they're practical.  "It's 
Gentoo, Jim, but not as we know it!"

As such, if someone/somegroup does decide to go that route, IMO the best 
approach would be a separate Gentoo-based distribution, where freezing and 
testing an entire tree for self-consistency and compatibility makes a bit 
more sense.  There are already a number of Gentoo-based distributions out 
there.  Certainly, talking to them about the problems they face and the 
solutions they use, if not using one of them directly, could be a good 
place to start.

Similarly, just as Gentoo has never made any bones about not being a hand-
holding distribution, in many cases, "you break, you get to keep the 
pieces" (tho users and devs do try to help and devs do try to prevent, 
where it's "sane" to do so), and it's not uncommon to see people saying 
that if the install speed of a binary distribution or the centrally 
controlled decisions of an Ubuntu are what one is after, Gentoo isn't 
really where you should be looking, I'd say the same applies, to some 
degree, here.  Yes, we can try to keep stable breakage to a minimum, but 
on a rolling release system, it's /going/ to happen, and I'd argue that 
the sort of wholesale freeze-and-test discussed above really /would/ be 
"Gentoo, Jim, but not as we know it", were it to be implemented as such in 
Gentoo.  That's not what Gentoo is /about/.  The rolling updates are so 
much a part of what makes Gentoo /Gentoo/, that take them out, as 
wholesale freeze and test would effectively do, and you no longer have 
Gentoo, at least as historically known.

That being the case, why confuse people about both the new product and 
Gentoo as it currently is, by calling the new product Gentoo at all?  If 
it's effectively a Gentoo-based distribution that isn't itself Gentoo, at 
least as historically considered, call it a Gentoo based distribution.  
Don't call it Gentoo, thus avoiding the confusion on both sides.

JMHO, but I've been around long enough to have seen this discussion cycle 
at least twice before...  Unfortunately, the result is often the loss of a 
few devs.  OTOH, if their goal is to make Gentoo a wholesale freeze and 
test distribution, perhaps it's better for both them and Gentoo that such 
efforts get applied somewhere more appropriate to that goal.

OTOH, if some big name comes up with suitable big resources to devote to 
such a project and they like the Gentoo name, perhaps a Gentoo-Enterprise 
might indeed be practical.  But the resource scaling that's going to 
require is enough beyond what we're doing today that I'd think seeing 
someone step up with an offer of such resources before we start seriously 
discussing it, is a worthwhile prerequisite.  And even then, making Gentoo 
that dependent on that sort of major sponsorship, regardless of who or 
what form, would change the historically "community distribution" aspect 
substantially enough that arguably, that would be "Gentoo, Jim, but not as 
we know it", as well.  But at that point I guess it'd be a question for 
the Gentoo foundation to decide, since they own the name and decide 
permissions for it in that regard.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman