[gentoo-dev] Re: RFC: CONFIG_CHECK_FATAL, making CONFIG_CHECKS fatal by default

[Duncan]

Michael Orlitzky posted on Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:22:10 -0500 as excerpted:

> On 01/24/2013 08:39 PM, Duncan wrote:
>>
>> Meanwhile, my vote is for a NON-FATAL pkg_pretend warning.  That gets
>> run at the beginning when people are still likely to be watching, so
>> should be good enough.  Beyond that, gentoo can't keep the obtuse from
>> ignoring the warnings, so if it breaks they get to keep the pieces, and
>> RESOLVED/ READTHEWARNINGS to any resulting bugs.
>
> They're not warnings, they're "we just broke your system, hope you
> weren't doing anything tonight!" A boulder with WARNING: FALLING ROCKS
> spray-painted on the bottom.

But a pkg_pretend warning would happen BEFORE the breakage, normally at
--pretend/--ask time, when people are still paying attention.  So it 
wouldn't be a boulder with the warning posted on the bottom, it would be 
a sign (which retaining the analogy, could be painted on the SIDE of a 
boulder) posted a kilometre ahead.

That's the purpose for which pkg_pretend was created, and AFAIK, the 
purpose for which it is used, tho there's a limitation on the EAPI it can 
be used with, since it didn't appear in early EAPIs.

> Better to spare the innocents, and for the people who set
> I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING=y in make.conf, we can create
> RESOLVED:I_THOUGHT_YOU_KNEW.

The thing is, if we use it so much that most folks have that variable 
set, then we've defeated the purpose and just executed an exercise in 
futility.

That said, as should be plain from previous posts, I'm certainly of the 
opinion that once we have the warning, it's no longer our responsibility, 
and people who ignore it get to keep the pieces.  In fact, I'm on record 
as being of the opinon that if such a case were to happen reasonably 
early in their gentoo experience (as it did back in the day when 
baselayout shipped /etc/fstab and some people ended up learning the hard 
way to actually pay attention to etc-updates as a result), ultimately, 
we'd have fewer bugs of this sort, because people would quickly learn 
that they had /better/ pay attention... or find another distro if they 
weren't willing to do so!

So yes, RESOLVED/READTHEWARNINGS or the like could be a viable bug 
status, indeed. =:^)

-- 
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