Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

[Frido Ferdinand]

Hi,

On 10/31/05, Dave Shanker <dshanker@×××××.com> wrote:
> What about Portage auto generating a upgrade file
> (/usr/portage/notices (like it does with it's cache) and then
> providing a notice at the end of an emerge than lets the user know
> it's there and how to read it. We could even provide a switch in
> portage to read the file and display the notices (emerge
> --readnotice).
>

Noted this thread on stu's weblog, and found it very interesting. Just
jumping in midway, so I might have missed some stuff. I agree that there
currently are too many channels where a user could look for information,
changing one of these channel to be an authorative one, and start using
it more often could be a good solution.

However stu's --news proposals looks interesting too, implementation
wise maybe it's a good idea to look at the GLSA and GLEP type messages.
They provide an excellent fixed, parsable format for changes already. And
afaik are the defacto source for security and enhancement proposals.
Maybe this should be extended to something like a GLCM (Gentoo Linux
Change Message, be creative).  if the format is XML defined, i'm sure
the portage people can integrate it into emerge --pretend with a special
flag, esp. if GLSA is already working. It's also easy to distribute these to
websites, mailinglists, RSS etc. As a sideeffect it's also easier to talk about
changes (compare, "GLCM 32", to "That apache change earlier this year").
One of the downsides of this could be that it places more work pressure on
developers, but i'm sure a good generation tool will help with this.

As a sidenote, The FreeBSD /usr/ports/UPGRADING is boring, but it works for
me.

Regards,

Frido

-- 
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list