Re: [gentoo-dev] NEWS item for games destabling

[Róbert Čerňanský]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2017 21:53:52 -0800
Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 11:36:33AM +0100, Róbert Čerňanský wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Nov 2017 10:26:29 +0100
> > David Seifert <soap@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > > Round 2 (with correct whitespace this time):
> > >
> > > Title: No stable KEYWORDS for Gentoo Games
> > > Author: David Seifert <soap@g.o>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain
> > > Posted: 2017-11-20
> > > Revision: 1
> > > News-Item-Format: 1.0
> > > Display-If-Keyword: amd64 x86
> > >
> > > As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on
> > > all games packages, we have dropped all ebuilds maintained by the
> > > games project to unstable KEYWORDS (without those required by
> > > other stable packages). If you have any of these stable games
> > > packages installed, you will have to add them
> > > to /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/ manually. Failures
> > > related to missing stable KEYWORDS will show up as
> > >
> > >   The following keyword changes are necessary to proceed:
> > >    (see "package.accept_keywords" in the portage(5) man page for
> > > more details)
> > >   # required by @selected
> > >   # required by @world (argument)
> > >   =games-action/0verkill-0.16-r4 ~amd64
> > >
> > > While we accept that this will cause some irritation for the
> > > community, pretending we have a well supported games collection by
> > > having a wealth of stable games packages is misleading at best. We
> > > welcome contributions from outsiders willing to polish up the
> > > games landscape in Gentoo via the Proxy Maintainers.
> >
> > What does it mean for the future?  Should not users bother to test &
> > write stabilization request bugs for games anymore?  Or stabi
> > requests will still be accepted?
>
> If I may take a stab at this (correct me if I'm wrong, soap):
>
> It only means games are being dropped to ~arch (testing) until other
> maintainers (proxy or otherwise) step up to make sure the games really
> are stable. Packages that rarely get attention but are still marked
> "stable" dilutes the meaning of "stable", especially if you get
> installation or runtime problems that a proper testing of the package
> would have caught.
>
> This results in bugs that should've been caught in the testing phase,
> confuses users (and developers), and redundant or obvious bugs being
> reported.
>
> This reads like a "fresh slate" for games, allowing them to start from
> ~arch and ensure that stabilization procedures are correctly followed
> by those who step up. While this will create more stabilization bugs,
> it should, in theory, result in better ebuilds (which makes Gentoo
> maintenance better/easier) and games that have *actually* been tested.
>
> I hope this explanation is both accurate and helpful.

It make sense to me.  Although the original news reads more like
"games will not go to stable unless they are proxy maintained" but --
in light of your explanation -- that's probably me reading it wrong.
It is certainly better if package keywords reflect the reality.  I
only hope this will not be happening very often, more like - never
again. ;-)

...and thanks games team and everyone who provides & maintains games
in Gentoo or did so in the past.  Availability of top-class games was
one of the things which attracted me to Gentoo (lots of years ago ;-) ).
Portage being able chew original commercial CD-s blown my mind back
then.  I think this is unique to Gentoo and no other distro had ever
possibility to install those games via package manager.

Robert


-- 
Róbert Čerňanský
E-mail: openhs@×××××××××.com
Jabber: hs@××××××.sk