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I've recently updated opengl-update to use the eselect framework. I |
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think the team has done a great job as it was extremely easy to port the |
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bash script to an eselect module. However, when I placed it in the |
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portage tree, it sparked a little bit of a policy discussion between |
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myself and the core eselect devs on how to best include modules in the |
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tree, so I'd like to let other devs chime in as well. |
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Firstly if you don't know what eselect is, check out: |
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http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/eselect/index.xml |
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The eselect developers want to keep all eselect modules in their svn |
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repository and distributed through a single package (app-admin/eselect). |
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Their main reasons for this are better QA and less overhead for releases |
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and merging. |
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|
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I have a problem with this policy because: |
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1) Stability of the modules should not be tied to stability of the core |
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package. Basically, I'd like to determine when my modules get pushed |
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into stable without considering how it'll effect the eselect modules of |
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other developers. Similarly, I don't want bugs in another module |
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holding up my module from going into stable. |
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|
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2) Not all users will want all modules. The goal of the eselect project |
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is to provide a framework to replace java-config, motif-config, |
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gcc-config, binutils-config, opengl-update, etc, but not all users will |
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need all modules. |
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|
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3) Some modules require extra files (opengl-update installs header |
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files, gcc-config installs a wrapper, etc), and the app-admin/eselect |
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package is not the correct place to provide these files. |
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|
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Also, what should the correct way to introduce these modules into |
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portage? |
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Should we keep them in the packages they're replacing |
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(x11-base/opengl-update)? |
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Should we place them in a new package in the same category as the script |
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they're replacing (x11-base/eselect-opengl)? |
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Should we place them in app-admin/eselect-<module name> or perhaps |
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app-eselect/<module name>? |
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|
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Note that for backwards compatibility in all cases, |
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x11-base/opengl-update will RDEPEND on this eselect module and install a |
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backwards-compatible frontend to the eselect module until all packages |
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in portage have been updated to use the eselect module instead. |
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