[gentoo-dev] [brainstorm] dev-lang internal package managers and portage

[Vadim A. Misbakh-Soloviov]

Hi there!
Long time ago I discovered that many language-specific packages
(libraries, webapps) written on languages like PHP, Ruby, Lua and so on
has (often) almost hardcoded dependence to be installed via their native
package managers (pecl, cpan, luarocks, gem, bundler and so on).
More of that, I discovered quite spiked way to install lang-specific
packages in portage (fakegem eclass, pecl-php eclass and so on).
Thinking in that way guided me to suggest to develop some kind of
compatibility layer between portage (and sandboxed installation) and
that lang-specific package managers.
So then it will be almost unneeded to, for example, write tons of new
local ebuilds when installing, for example new version of redmine. Or to
write tons of spikes when installing some PHP or Lua apps, designed for
pecl or luarocks respectively.

But on the other hand — QA issues. I afraid, that it will make us
responsible to upstream failures (in users eyes).

Anyway, let's discuss some ideas on that behaviour.


BTW, this post is mainly sponsored by great PITA about deploying rails
applications and trying to get them to work with system-wide dev-ruby/*
things installed (while upstream REQUIRES to use bundler). It is also
minor-sponsored by some kepler-project apps (Lua) and some PHP apps.