Re: [gentoo-dev] What is "official"?

[Kevin F. Quinn]

On Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:50:27 -0400
Ned Ludd <solar@g.o> wrote:

> Keeping it simple...
>
> If it's hosted on gentoo infrastructure it's official.
> If it's hosted on gentooexp.org/SF/Non infra then it's not official.

I think this is the best way to define it.  Anything on Gentoo
infrastructure has to have broad support from the Gentoo community.
Anything elsewhere can do whatever it wants.

We could take a leaf from the GNU book, and register nongentoo.org if
infra wish to host stuff that is not official (c.f. savannah.gnu.org vs
savannah.nongnu.org).  Then sunrise could go on overlays.nongentoo.org

Official means supported, however supported does not necessarily mean
official.  Just because some people support something doesn't make it
"official".  For example, if a project is official, then it's not
acceptable for devs to just ignore a problem related to the
project in stuff that isn't part of the project (at the very
least the problem should be referred to the project).

What I'm getting at is that "officialness" can be thought of in terms
of the effects it has, "how does the way something official is dealt
with differ from something unofficial?".  My take is that official stuff
is something that all devs accept some level of responsibility for.
Thus official stuff is supported by the dev community as a whole. If
something isn't supported by the dev community as a whole, in that a
reasonable portion of the dev community actively discourage it, then it
shouldn't be official.  Works both ways, of course - official projects
need to make reasonable efforts not to cause pain for everyone else.

> On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 10:32 +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > One of the issues that the o.g.o project has brought to a head is
> > the definition of what is "official" and what is not "official"
> > when it comes to Gentoo.  The term is already being thrown about in
> > the Project Sunrise thread; I'm sure it'll come up again in future.
> >
> > It's an issue I think we should discuss and find an agreement on.
> >
> > Personally, I think what makes something official or not is 100%
> > down to who does it.  I think something is official if it is done
> > by the project (where a project matches the definition in the
> > metastructure project) responsible for whatever we're applying the
> > label "official" to, then that's all that matters.

I think this delegates "officialness" too much.  I don't think a
project should encourage something that directly contadicts what is
official in a broader sense.

> > So (picking something entirely at random for an example), if the
> > Java project had an overlay somewhere (say, on
> > gentooexperimental.org), because it's their overlay, the overlay is
> > "official".  Doesn't matter where it is hosted - all that matters
> > is that it is run by the Java project.

My argument would be that the experimental overlay would not be
official for Gentoo as a whole.  For example, any problems caused by
people using stuff from the experimental overlay (such that
returning to the official tree would eliminate the problem) could be
RESOLVED/INVALID.  We come back to the same thing; how can anyone be
expected to maintain stuff against a sea of unofficial overlays?

> > Equally (because it is the hot topic of the moment), Project
> > Sunrise's overlay would be "official" because they're a Gentoo
> > project.  The way to stop them being "official" is simply to have
> > the Council pass a resolution to shut down the project.

With regards sunrise, I think a good solution would be to start it as
an unofficial project.  If in the long term it proves acceptable to the
community as a whole, it could become official.  One thing that is a
distasteful is the way sunrise is presented as a fait-accompli,
when prior discussion on this list had clearly implied (to my mind
at least) that overlays.g.o would not be used for such a thing.

> > I think the other side of the term "official" is clarifying the
> > scope of how far something can be "official".  Using the Java
> > project as an example again (sorry guys :), the Java team can put
> > in place "official" policies and procedures for what their team
> > does, but that doesn't make them mandatory for the whole Gentoo
> > project.  Other developers remain free to form competitive
> > projects, and put their own "official" policies and procedures in
> > place if they wish.
> >
> > (I hope I explained that last bit properly.  What I'm trying to do
> > is keep in mind the terms of the metastructure document, which
> > explicitly allow for two or more teams to be competing with each
> > other).

This is about delegation, which is fine - however I don't think it's a
good idea to have two conflicting official positions.  With regards
Gentoo-wide policy

> >
> > What are the alternatives?  If a project's activities are not
> > automatically "official", then who gets to decide, and how is that
> > decision made?  How can that decision be made fairly, without
> > contradicting the metastructure, and without giving rise to any
> > accusations of 'cabals'?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Stu


-- 
Kevin F. Quinn