On Saturday 22 August 2009, Maciej Mrozowski wrote:
> It's true, but being able to modularize profile may outweights the
> need to be strict-with-the-book here - it's a matter of usefulness. I
> think it should be decided by those who actually do the work in
> profile, whether it's worthy to push this now instead of waiting for
> EAPI approval.
>
> So, can profile developers share their view?

We have kept SLOT dependencies and other >EAPI-0 features out of the 
tree profiles, introduced profile EAPI versioning to foster 
interoperability. Now what you propose is to break this deliberate 
upgrade process to introduce a feature no one proposed for the profiles 
directory in the last years?

I wonder what the value of the PMS specification is if every time an 
inconsistency comes up the argument is raised that it should document 
portage behavior. EAPI 1, 2 and 3 have been agreed by the council and 
PMS is in a stage where Portage should obey its definitions and not the 
other way around.
I am not saying that this is the *fastest* way to innovate (although in 
my opinion it is a good way to keep interoperability).
However this PMS process is what council has chosen for Gentoo, and 
either you follow it, or you try to improve it (working with the PMS 
subproject people), or you bring up a proposal to redefine how we 
handle standards within the tree.

Trying to ignore the fact this standard exists is a way to breakage.


Robert