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Nirbheek Chauhan posted on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:38:56 +0530 as excerpted: |
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> We had something interesting happen with policykit. It was masked for a |
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> very long time, and so all users of policykit had "sys-auth/policykit" |
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> in p.unmask. Then it was unmasked, but of course who bothers cleaning up |
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> their local configuration as long as it works? |
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> |
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> Months later, policykit-0.92 was added (masked) which was ABI, API, UI, |
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> everything incompatible. |
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> And of course it completely hosed everything on top of X. |
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> Lesson to be learnt: users are morons with short attention spans[1]. |
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> 1. Of course, we ourselves come under the definition of "users" too.. ;) |
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Ouch! I've had something like that bite me (user-side) too, when I |
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wondered why my package.mask entry wasn't being honored... I had a |
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package.unmask entry too! |
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In theory that's what those stupid version string thingys are for, but |
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it's soooo much easier just to forget one! =:^[ |
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Maybe something about this should go in the handbook -- a suggestion that |
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if one is going to use a package.unmask entry, that they copy the |
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package.mask entry over, thus at least letting the devs minimize the |
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version spread damage with their package.mask entries. That's what I've |
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started doing, and it works surprisingly well, as I have right there the |
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comment on why it was masked (and add a comment on why I'm unmasking, |
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when I think I might wonder, later), and it's the exact same versions the |
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devs masked in the first place, so I don't have to worry so much about |
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unintended version spread -- at least as long as the devs doing the |
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masking worried about it then. =:^) |
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What do you devs think? Would that be a practical hint for the |
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handbook? Would it be helpful in allowing /you/ to control the version |
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spread of the unmask, by consequence of your control of the version |
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spread on the mask in the first place? |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |