Re: [gentoo-dev] Official overlay support

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 16:40 +0000, Chris Bainbridge wrote:
> On 23/03/06, Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 14:41 +0000, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > > Your nightmare scenario seems unavoidable.  Enabling per-overlay bug
> > > tracking doesn't stop users posting bugs in bugzilla.  It just causes
> > > confusion for users, because they're not sure where to go.  Normally,
> > > it's not a problem - because the overlay contributors are normally the
> > > owners of the real package.
> >
> > No, it does not stop them, but it sure will curb the number of users
> > posting their bugs to the wrong place.  Remember that only more advanced
> > users are the ones using overlays.  We won't have Joe Sixpack using an
> > overlay.  Instead it'll be Bob Developer-to-be.
>
> If the software a user wants is in an overlay, then the user will be
> forced to install the overlay.

It shouldn't be in the overlay, is I think the point many are trying to
make.  If the software is good enough for any of our users, it should be
good enough for the tree.

Yes, I know that this isn't a realistic stance, but we can't go around
thinking that overlays won't negatively impact the tree, either.

> Another thing that some people may not have considered - with many
> developers using various permutations of overlays, how can you
> guarantee that what is being checked into the main tree will build for
> a normal user? In order to test that, a developer would have to
> disable all overlays, unemerge everything provided by the overlays,
> and then build and test with a plain "non-overlay" gentoo. That's a
> lot of work; I doubt most developers are doing it.

Developers should be doing testing in a chroot, really.  I'll definitely
agree with you that many do not.

> There is a discussion on the forums at the moment along a similar
> topic http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-443469.html - the vote
> seems to indicate 58% of users are "not really happy with the way the
> portage tree is handled".

No.  It indicates nothing except that 58% of the 80 people who filled
out the poll are "not really happy with the way the portage tree is
handled" which by my counts, isn't even a drop in the bucket of our
number of users, making the statistic completely worthless.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux