[gentoo-dev] Re: Lastrite: media-gfx/pngcrush

[Duncan]

Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn posted on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:37:59 +0200 as
excerpted:

> Duncan schrieb:
>> Libpng isn't held up that way, while the package still gets its 30 day
>> masking last-rites.  No policy broken; no maintainer toes stepped on as
>> a result of the broken policy.  No more nasty threads about (this)
>> broken policy and unhappy maintainers as a result! =:^)
>
> Actually removing a package that doesn't violate any (written) rules
> without maintainer consensus could be considered a violation of policy
> too.
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/recruiters/mentor.xml Respect
> existing maintainers:
> Never commit when someone else has clear ownership. Never commit on
> things with unclear ownership until you've tried to clear it up.

You are correct, but AFAIK, that's one function of tree-cleaners (whether 
or not the remover is actually on the tree-cleaner team), when packages 
are broken due to going stale against current, and the bugs reporting the 
problem remain open for months without (visible) movement (there's some 
movement here, yes, but was it visible?).

That's actually why the 30-day mask is so important and it's so 
distressing to see people trying to cut it short.  Masking has a way of 
waking people (maintainers and others) up if they actually use the 
package, and gives a chance for reprieve.

But if that 30-day-mask time is cut short, it really does throw a wrench 
into things due to interactions with "p-space" (physical-space), like 
vacations, etc, especially considering that Gentoo is volunteers.  Coming 
back from a vacation to see that one's package has been removed and the 
30-day-mask-time cut short so it all happened while one was on (2-week) 
vacation is a rude thing indeed to have happen, and maintainers *should* 
be complaining!  I'd be raising holy cow! (... tho with council and on 
-core as appropriate, the making of the sausage wouldn't /all/ have to be 
in the open!)

So, please, at LEAST honor the 30-day-in-mask bit.  And if someone steps 
up to rescue during that time, let's give them some time to do so.  One 
can /hope/ both sides will be reasonable here and if something's removed 
in an untimely manner, or even at the end of the 30 days if the timing 
simply worked out badly and the person couldn't get to it until day 31 or 
35, it can be returned but kept in a masked state for another month or 
two, if necessary, without having to further nail down in written policy 
that end of things, but right now, we're not even getting to that point.  
Let's at least let the established policy work the way it was intended, 
giving someone time to step up and do the rescue.

Meanwhile, once the package is masked, don't let it hold up the normal 
update process with other packages. (Tho ideally there's cooperation in 
this aspect as well, but again, we're not even getting to the point where 
that's an issue.  Right now, existing written policies are being violated 
for questionable-at-best reasons; obviously if something's discovered to 
have been back-doored or the like, that would be rather beyond 
"questionable-at-best"!  But of course that'd be security not "just"
tree-cleaners/qa.)

-- 
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