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Thilo Bangert wrote: |
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> AFAIK, we have never explicitly made this distinction clear. if we had, we |
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> would have to remove stuff from portage which doesnt live up to the |
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> standards. |
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> |
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|
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I'm all for that. In reality we tend to leave them alone until a |
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security issue actually comes up, which is probably a reasonable |
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compromise (since it also takes work to remove them). In any case, |
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failure to completely meet a standard does not automatically imply that |
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the standard is worthless. |
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|
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> it is also not true from a more real world perspective: there are many |
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> packages in portage that have a standard which is much lower than what is |
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> in some overlays. and there are many packages in overlays which live up to |
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> a quality standard way above portage's average. |
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> |
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I don't think anybody has issues with overlays that choose to have |
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higher quality standards than portage. I'm all for that. I'm concerned |
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with the quality level in portage - since that is what we attach our |
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name to. If some other repository wants to do a better job than more |
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power to them! |
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|
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However, Gentoo cannot endorse "all overlays" as being official |
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repositories, because clearly there is no standard for quality when all |
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it takes to have an overlay is to set up an rsync or http server and put |
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some ebuilds on it. |
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|
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> if you want to exaggerate a bit, we have roughly 500 ebuilds in portage |
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> which are maintainer-needed and have only a few users and thats why you |
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> want to keep popular packages out of the tree? |
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> |
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|
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Actually, where any of those ebuilds cause problems I'm fine with |
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getting rid of them. I'm certainly not arguing for inconsistency. I'm |
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just suggesting that we shouldn't make the problem worse. |
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|
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If a package is popular then somebody should volunteer to maintain it |
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(whether by becoming a gentoo dev or by starting their own overlay). If |
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that isn't happening than clearly the package isn't THAT important. |
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This is open source - if you have an itch, then scratch it! Don't just |
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complain that nobody else is scratching YOUR itch (even if it is a |
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popular itch). |
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|
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In any case, my opinion is that for packages to be in portage they |
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should be of a certain level of quality, and a developer should be |
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accountable for the packages they commit. Anybody is welcome to grab |
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ebuilds out of CVS, screen them, and commit them. However, if they |
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cause havoc then the developer can't just say "but it was popular and |
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unmaintained, so I figured I'd just commit something without looking at |
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it." If a developer is willing to commit an appropriate amount of time |
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to QA then they essentially have become a maintainer and the package is |
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no-longer maintainer-wanted. |
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