Re: [gentoo-catalyst] catalyst enhancement

[Daniel Ostrow]

<snip>
> > Remember that simply making something easier for you isn't a valid reason for
> > hacking up catalyst internals that much.
> >
> This puzzles me, if making a tool easier to use for it's users isn't a
> valid reason for hacking at the tool, then what is ?
> I understand issues with code-quality, reluctance to touch internals and
> show me code before talk..........
</snip>

The reasoning is quite simple. The target "users" of catalyst are first,
foremost, and finally members of Gentoo's Release Engineering team. The
fact that other people use it is a byproduct of making the code
available for such use, not the actual intention. When considering
enhancement requests they have to filter through 3 major questions.

1). Is this functionality going to make catalyst easier to use or more
robust as *Gentoo's* release management tool.

If it doesn't make the job of releasing *official* Gentoo media easier
then we fall to question 2.

2). Is this feature in enough public demand and can enough use cases for
it be provided that even though it won't necessarily enhance the process
of building *official* release materials.

If so then question 3 comes into play.

3). Can it be done without complicating the code enough that Gentoo's
capability to make reproducible releases is impaired *and* without
making harder to maintain and/or extend the code for the purpose of a
Gentoo's official releases.

Again I want to stress that the fact that other people use catalyst is
nice, and we encourage it to a certain extent, but the purpose of
catalyst is to build official Gentoo media, no more, no less.

--Dan