Re: [gentoo-dev] QA Roles v2

[Grant Goodyear]

Stuart Herbert wrote:
> I agree.  Adopting a policy like this is a low quality solution for
> servers.  I've no opinion on how this affects desktops, but packages
> for servers need to be precise.    A policy that says "if two USE
> flags deliver the same benefits, but conflict, pick one" is fine.  But
> saying "flip a coin" ... how on earth is that "quality"?

See my previous post.

> And how the heck is it going to work w/ USE-based defaults?  This
> creates a situation where package (b) cannot trust that a feature is
> enabled in package (a), even if package (a) was built with the
> required USE flags.

Yep.  Having a USE flag enabled turns out not to be a guarantee.  That
said, package builds do become deterministic, so (for example) if one
needs to know if msmtp was built with openssl or gnutls it is easy
enough to pull the logic from the msmtp ebuild.  I'm sure that there is
a more elegant solution, but I'm not convinced that having the user
randomly throw USE flags at a package until some combination works is
necessarily it.  I could be wrong, however.  *Shrug*

> I'll go as far as saying that right now I'm embarrased that it looks
> like this is going to become a Gentoo policy in its current form.

With an apology for singling you out (when yours is certainly not the
only, or even the most appropriate, example), that sort of emotional
response is how these threads begin to degenerate.  There appears to be
an implicit assumption there that your view is clearly correct, and any
other is embarrassingly silly.  Instead, I suggest that perhaps people
on both (all?) sides of the issue are rational, intelligent people who
simply differ on what happens to be the greatest evil.

> You're absolutely *not* creating a better user experience.  You're
> brushing a problem under the carpet ... and making it the users'
> problem when they wonder why the built a package with a USE flag and
> the package still doesn't work as they expect.

I would argue that the user tends to get unexpected results in either
case, it's just a matter of whether the build crashes, or the resulting
package is somewhat unexpected.  Given that fact, I'm arguing that
having a potentially-lengthy emerge crash out is the bigger evil.

> Until Portage supports resolving conflicting USE flags when the
> deptree is built, the practical thing to do is for ebuilds w/
> conflicting USE flags to bail.

I, quite respectfully, disagree.

-g2boojum-