[gentoo-dev] ironing out release tarballs

[Mike Frysinger]

background:
everyone wants @system to be slim, but most people want the initial stage
tarball that we release and you install Gentoo from to not be completely
sparse.  we've got a bug for this topic:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/393445

items to sort out:
- should the list of packages be in catalyst or profile-stacked content
-> imo it should be entirely in the profile

- should the packages list be in a new packages.default, or should we create a
  new set to hold it, or should we just go with @profile ?
-> @profile has the advantage of already existing.  we have to be careful so as
   to make it difficult to uninstall packages that the user does not actually
   want.

- if the packages aren't in @profile, should they be seeded in @world ?
-> imo yes as  we don't want all the default packages getting depcleaned as
   soon as you start using the new install.  if they're in @profile, then this
   is a moot point (assuming depclean does not clean out @profile).

- should stage3 be @system only, or @system+@profile, or 
  @system+@profile+packages.default ?
-> this depends on the previous discussion a bit.  today, stage3's are 
   @system, but imo @system+@profile is reasonable.  see next question too.

- should we release stage4's instead of stage3's ?
-> if we keep stage3 as @system-only, then we'd build stage4's which would add
   @profile/whatever
-> downside is that we've been training the world to download & install stage3
   for almost 15 years
-> imo as long as the default @profile is kept slim, adjusting the definition of
   a stage3 is OK
-mike