Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: revisiting our stabilization policy

[Peter Stuge]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> I get what you're saying, though there is still a cost to leaving the
> bug open to years.  In this case it means an old package stays in the
> tree marked as stable.  That either costs maintainers the effort to
> keep it work, or they don't bother to keep in working in which case
> users get saddled with issues.

Since it's not possible to force anyone to keep old packages working
when the rest of a system has been upgraded this is hard to solve.

If reality is that a package is in the tree but there is no stable
version which works in an otherwise updated system then I think it's
accurate to have an open bug.

If nobody makes the package work then there seem to be two options;
either leave the bug open until someone makes things work again,
or to remove the package from portage and close the bug as WONTFIX.

But even if a given package is removed from portage the old stable
version is still installed on the user's system.


//Peter