Re: [gentoo-alt] [PREFIX] the future of Prefix

[Alan Hourihane]

On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 22:34 +0200, Fabian Groffen wrote:
> With the introduction of EAPI=2, I noticed we had some problems in the
> eclasses that now do logic based on the active EAPI.  I fixed all
> eclasses by ignoring the "prefix" component in EAPI when they deal with
> it, but of course it indicates the end of the journey here.
>
> I've been suggested by several people in #gentoo-portage that I bring
> Prefix to -dev with the obvious target to have Prefix being integrated
> in mainline Portage, and hence it being its own EAPI -- even though that
> won't fly since Prefix is orthogonal to any currently existing EAPI.
>
> A direct consequence of going that route, of course is the introduction
> of Prefix in gentoo-x86 ... going mainline.  I decided for myself that
> those who gave me the suggestion are right.  We have Prefix for a long
> while now, and if I try to objectively review myself and our project, I
> think we did quite a nice job, especially considering the stats graph I
> just sent out doesn't depict *all* work that's gone in the project.
>
> So, it seems the time has come to try and prepare to write up what we
> need from the people to agree on.  I've thought about my huge "GLEP in
> progress", but I think it'll go nowhere for a discussion.  Instead, I
> think zmedico's RFCs have been well formulated, short pieces of text
> that received a in general well targetted discussion.  I think we should
> try to see if we can bring the ideas behind Prefix in RFCs like that,
> and then have them pushed into Portage trunk afterwards.
>
> What you all think?  I need your help to say the least.  This seems to
> me to be large scale, and not something for just a one-man show...

We've obviously got an uphill battle to get all the patches into
mainline.

So can we start piecemeal and pushing the portage changes to mainline
first, but keep your current changes in prefix so we can continue in
parallel ?

I think it's inevitable we have to sync up with mainline at some point,
but you are right, it's certainly not a one man job.

Alan.