Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: Proposal for addition of distribution variables

[Daniel Campbell]

On 12/04/2016 06:58 PM, Mike Gilbert wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 6:31 PM, A. Wilcox <awilfox@×××××××××××.org> wrote:
>> Roadmap
>> - -------
>>
>> Since the shell environment is flexible, this change can be
>> implemented almost immediately; the defaults specified in the Gentoo
>> base profile ensure that at worst nothing will immediately change.  As
>> forks, derivatives, and other organisations change the environment
>> variables in their profiles or ``make.conf`` files, all updated
>> ebuilds will immediately reflect the changes.
>>
>> During this, the variables can be added to the EAPI=7 specification,
>> and may eventually be added to PMS §11.1.
>
> It's not clear to me why this should be defined in PMS, especially if
> this is going to be a profile variable in make.defaults.
>
> I think we would only need to add it to PMS if you need to package
> manager to compute the value based on the running system. Is that what
> you had in mind here? If so, you will need to include that algorithm
> in your patch.
>
How would we ensure (or encourage) that other distros based on Gentoo
would follow this practice? Adding things to PMS isn't a panacea, sure,
but from what I can tell it seems the goal here is to allow distros
based on us to correctly *show* that without changing hundreds of lines
in the package tree. Maybe that's outside of PMS; if so, where does this
belong?

Of course, this solution requires action/patching on our behalf as well,
but it seems like a long-term goal that, when completed, may be suitable
for addition in some sort of standard document, even if it's a wiki page
on how to roll your own distro based on us.

It didn't seem to me that there was any intention to automatically guess
which distro it is; the people in charge of each distro's package tree
should be setting those variables to the correct value, and it should be
accessible throughout the tree(s).

As OP mentioned, at worst it does nothing until it 'spreads' throughout
the tree. The end result is anyone could fork us, change DISTRO and
DISTRO_BUG_URL, and instantly have a starting point for their new
distro. I'm not aware of any other distro that would make forking or
spinning off _this_ easy. That could turn into renewed interest in
Gentoo or possibly even better inter-distro relations, since bugs would
be going to the correct places.

To OP: This idea looks good to me; do you have any proofs of concept for
use in common places like ebuilds, metadata.xml (if you intend for it to
be used there), etc? If we had a more visual idea of how it worked,
maybe more people would understand and have an idea of where to put it
if it doesn't fit in with PMS's scope.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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