Re: [gentoo-dev] unstable/testing keywords

[Jack Morgan]

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 01:59:37PM +0200, Ch??-Thanh Christopher Nguy???n wrote:
> Jack Morgan schrieb:
> > I find this confusing and hope to clear it up. According to emerge/portage
> > man pages we have stable keywords (ARCH) and unstable packages (~ARCH) while
> > the handbook[1] says we have stable keywords (ARCH) and testing keywords
> > (~ARCH).
>
> There is stable and not stable. Whether you call what is not stable
> "unstable" or "testing" does not matter, as Gentoo does not
> differentiate between the two. FWIW, I think that using the word testing
> implies some sort of path to stable, which is not the case with many
> packages. I prefer to say unstable.
 
This is not true based on the what the handbook says[1]. If fact this
email thread is about the disconnect in our developer community on what
the difference is between ARCH and ~ARCH. I can't find any documented
details for "unstable keywords" besides the man pages listed above.

From the recent council summary[2], there seems to be some difference in
perspective on its meaning. I can't tell if they in fact the council is 
just talking about keywords or possible talking about "unstable/unsupported
architecture. Perhaps developers think they can be interchangable?

As others have pointed out, "unstable" or even "not stable" wasn't the
intended meaning. If the meaning has warped over time, then it should be
cleared up in a GLEP, handbook corrected, etc. 

 
[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3&chap=3
[2] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/meeting-logs/20130917-summary.txt


Thanks,
-- 
Jack Morgan
Pub 4096R/761D8E0A 2010-09-13 Jack Morgan <jmorgan@g.o>>
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