[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: upgrade's and rc-scripts

[Duncan]

Zac Medico posted <42E11632.8040606@×××××.com>, excerpted below,  on Fri,
22 Jul 2005 08:52:18 -0700:

> Duncan wrote:
>> Zac Medico posted <42DF90B1.9030806@×××××.com>, excerpted below,  on
>> Thu, 21 Jul 2005 05:10:25 -0700:
>>
>>
>>>This could be an optional feature such as FEATURES="restartservices".
>>>The CONFIG_PROTECT functionality could remain as is.  Portage could use
>>>a special ebuild variable to determine whether the previous and new
>>>ebuilds have compatible configuration file formats (similar to EAPI) and
>>>only restart the service if they are compatible.
>>
>>
>> Interesting.  Something like PKG_CONFIG_VER, individualized for each
>> package.  Portage would know not to restart the service between major
>> versions, and would know it could if the version stayed the same.  The
>> question would be what to do for minor config version changes (which
>> would equate to compatible in general, but with one or more changes).
>> I'd say that should mean a safe restart as well.  If it wouldn't be
>> safe, and since the config version would be a Gentoo-only arbitrary
>> number, I'd say make that a major version change.
>>
>>
> I mentioned this mostly just because the idea popped into my head and
> thought others might be interested ;-).  Upon further inspection, it does
> seem like a "opening can of worms".  I'm not sure that the benefits of
> this feature would justify the costs of implementing it.

Indeed.  IMO it's one of those things that get labeled "bluesky" on the
various development roadmaps.  It'd be nice... some day... but it'd be far
more work than it's really worth, today.  Furthermore, it wouldn't be the
work of just one person, but many Gentoo developers... which wouldn't be
bad except for the fact that such would necessarily take away from the
limited time (of volunteers, mind you, so the time /is/ limited, to bits
and pieces "stolen" from "real life") available for other things, a
package or two more one might maintain were it not for the extra work
creating and maintaining the versions, adding yet another entire area of
possible bugs to the already ever growing bugzilla db.  It's a nice idea
-- except for all the other things that pursuing it will mean do not get
done.

That said, many of what we know as the packages we deal with daily today
were such "nice ideas" at some point.  The trick is finding someone who is
sufficiently motivated by this challenge that they put more into it than
they'd put into other projects.  It's not quite the zero sum game the
above paragraph assumes.  Find someone (or several someones) sufficiently
interested, and it grows the pie.  One only has to look at the fantastic
and ever growing array of fine packages we have today to realize how true
that is, how big the pie is, only because one of the strengths of open
source is finding those folks and getting them interested, while at the
same time letting them "stand on the shoulders of giants."  Really, I
believe that's why stuff like Gentoo/FBSD and Gentoo on XBox project, and
others, don't get shot down.  Everyone realizes that while it might be
taking away perhaps 10-50% of the time invested from other things, the
other 50-90% is in many cases "growing the pie", investments that wouldn't
happen otherwise.  I've watched the Gentoo/FBSD project grow from an
initial enquiry, and know even as it takes a bit of time from the "Gentoo
core" by some, it is just as certainly making Gentoo as a whole more
robust, strengthening it in only the way adapting it for other platforms
can do.  The total *IS* really more than the sum of the parts, or neither
the FLOSS community in general nor Gentoo in particular would be where it
is today.  Thus, if someone's really driven to work on a project, than by
all means...

Anyway, yes, it's an interesting idea.  I hadn't thought of config
versioning in quite that way, before, tho I'm sure it's not an entirely
new concept (witness the ebuild format versioning so recently discussed,
and the versions of such things as the MIME format in the RFCs, before
that).  If it stimulates someone with the skills to get into it, where
they wouldn't have spent the time otherwise, enlarging that pie, that's a
GOOD thing, and there are enough reading this list/group that it's
certainly possible.   However, IMO, if it is to be done, ideally, it gets
done by new blood, or at least those sufficiently stimulated by the
prospect to devote significantly more time to it than they would have to
FLOSS or Gentoo otherwise, so it /is/ growing that pie, not splitting it
off into little segments.

FWIW...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


-- 
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list