Re: [gentoo-dev] [soc] Python bindings for Paludis

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:04:15 -0400
Mike Frysinger <vapier@g.o> wrote:
> On Tuesday 27 March 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > Do you acknowledge that Portage is a severe limiting factor when it
> > comes to improving the Gentoo user experience as a whole?
>
> what a lame question ... rather than waste time on this, why dont we
> get to some relevant issues ...

Gentoo's lack of progress is an extremely relevant issue...

> to start with, Paludis will never be an official package manager for
> Gentoo so long as you are heavily involved.  now that we've put a
> bolt right between the eyes of that pink elephant, how about we
> address some other things as well ...

Ah, resorting to ad hominem. Is that the best you can manage? Is the
best excuse you can provide to users for denying them the things they
want and need "waah! ciaranm boogeyman!"?

> since you're obviously going to complain about Gentoo's official
> package manager so long as $pkgmgr != paludis without any intentions
> of helping address limitations you raise (nor am i expecting you to),
> why dont you do us all a favor and clamp it.  constantly pointing out
> that $pkgmgr sucks and $pkgmgr does not support xxx and $pkgmgr has
> this limitation or that stupid design decision and that paludis is
> the be all end all solution to our problems does not accomplish
> anything ... it merely serves to piss us all off

No no, I'd be quite happy with any package manager that meets my needs
and the needs of other people. Portage is not such a package manager,
and, let's face it, never will be. The continuing delusion that Portage
will somehow magically improve and allow Gentoo to keep up with other
distributions is largely why Gentoo is stuck where it is.

> a good topic for the next council meeting i think would be to start
> up a spec of requirements that a package manager must satisfy before
> it'd be an official package manager for Gentoo ... off the top of my
> head:
>  - the main developers need to be Gentoo developers
>  - source code hosted on Gentoo infrastructure
>  - compatible "emerge" and "ebuild" binaries

As you know fine well, the Council has already rejected GLEP 49, which
says more or less that. As you also know fine well, those requirements
mean Gentoo will permanently be stuck with Portage (and when dreaming
up silly and biased requirements, bear in mind that Portage was at one
point close to being moved off Gentoo infrastructure because of the huge
delays in setting up svn...).

If you're looking for serious topics to discuss in this area, how about
the following?

"Is Portage severely limiting Gentoo's progress and future direction?
What limits need to be removed in the next month, six months and year
in order for Gentoo to get closer to its goal of providing 'near-ideal'
tools and to regain its competitive edge? What steps can be taken to
facilitate this?"

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh