1 |
Hi Seemant, |
2 |
|
3 |
On 30-Mar-07, at 6:28 AM, Seemant Kulleen wrote: |
4 |
> Historical reasons aren't necessarily the correct reasons. I'd almost |
5 |
> say that your sentence has officially heralded the age of |
6 |
> Debianisation. |
7 |
|
8 |
There are practical reasons too. Like the fact that all of our users |
9 |
are now using portage, and making a switch is clearly a non-trivial |
10 |
issue, which has to be well thought out. |
11 |
|
12 |
> Have you ever tried to add features to a frankenstein of a beast? |
13 |
> What |
14 |
> is the value to you in doing something like that? Isn't there more |
15 |
> value in designing something based on what you've learned instead? We |
16 |
> can all go all day about this and not convince each other, so please |
17 |
> let's just drop this line of thinking. |
18 |
|
19 |
I agree. |
20 |
|
21 |
> What are you basing any of this on? Sounds like speculation that |
22 |
> doesn't help anything. |
23 |
|
24 |
I fail to understand why the portage developers would refuse to |
25 |
accept a patch that actually improves something (without causing |
26 |
major regressions i.e.). If they do refuse such a patch (for |
27 |
political reasons), then we have a serious problem. However, based on |
28 |
past experience with the portage developers, I doubt this would happen. |
29 |
|
30 |
> Debian was never a distro that I thought we'd emulate, or should |
31 |
> emulate. Turns out I was wrong, I suppose. |
32 |
|
33 |
I'm not saying we should emulate Debian, but rather conveying the |
34 |
fact that, whether we like it or not, they're the only distro that we |
35 |
can really compare ourselves with. Of course, given a situation, |
36 |
there's more than one way to solve a problem; so we don't have to |
37 |
emulate them. I for one, sure don't want to, because I know there are |
38 |
many of us who've "run away" from Debian into the arms of Gentoo :) |
39 |
|
40 |
> |
41 |
>> Point is, the day when more than 50% of the devs feel we need a new |
42 |
>> package manager, will be the day a replacement will be made. |
43 |
> |
44 |
> I'm not entirely sure on your reasons for this statement. If |
45 |
> developers' don't face any API changes, why should we have to have a |
46 |
> political vote on which package manager gets dubbed the one true |
47 |
> official one? Why should it be a popularity contest? Why can it |
48 |
> not be |
49 |
> a technical superiority issue? If there is a compelling set of |
50 |
> technical reasons to replace portage, why ignore that set? |
51 |
|
52 |
I base that on the fact that all developers are more or less |
53 |
"equally" capable of making a technical decision. Maybe I am wrong. |
54 |
|
55 |
I wasn't indicating that a "popularity" contest should be held, |
56 |
because I trust the developers will cast their vote only after |
57 |
*technically* evaluating the options. I also don't think it's fair |
58 |
for a small minority of developers to make the switch on behalf of |
59 |
the rest of us, which is why I mentioned a number like "50%". An |
60 |
election is not always political ;) |
61 |
|
62 |
> Portage is more than the package manager. Its life comes from the |
63 |
> portage _tree_. Portage is just the tool that is used to use that |
64 |
> tree. |
65 |
> If that tool is outdated (and let's be honest, it kind of is), then |
66 |
> switching it is not actually a bad thing. |
67 |
|
68 |
Agreed. But if so many of us do think that there are better package |
69 |
managers out there that do a magnificent job of utilizing the tree, |
70 |
then I fail to understand why no-one is seriously considering a switch? |
71 |
|
72 |
> In sum, I'm not sure I like this direction of basing technical |
73 |
> things on |
74 |
> political decisions. |
75 |
|
76 |
Ok, I'm sure a lot of us agree on the fact that portage is |
77 |
technically outdated and is Gentoo's own "Frankenstein". Time for a |
78 |
replacement, but what do you think would be the repercussions of |
79 |
proposing something like that? If they are not catastrophic, might I |
80 |
initiate such a proposal? |
81 |
|
82 |
Thanks and Best Regards, |
83 |
-- |
84 |
Anant |
85 |
-- |
86 |
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |