Re: [gentoo-dev] package.mask vs ~arch

[William Hubbs]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 01:07:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:32 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 06:13:45PM +0200, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> >> On Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:40:19 -0400
> >> Ian Stakenvicius <axs@g.o> wrote:
> >>
> >> > But... if I unmask it, -everyone- using ~arch will install it and
> >> > it'll break all the systems that it doesn't work on, which -could- be
> >> > quite a lot at this point.  :D
> >>
> >> Which is great, because then you have an actual test result, whereas
> >> before you had nothing but a stupid mask.
> >>
> >> And lots of people are suddenly very much interested in getting any and
> >> all bugs fixed in the new ebuild, whereas before you only had the stupid
> >> mask.
> >>
> >>
> >>      jer
> >
> > I am going to agree with Jer on this.
> >
> > As said before, ~arch users know that their systems will break
> > sometimes, so if the package works for you, unleash it on ~arch. If
> > someone using a configuration you don't have finds that it breaks, I'm
> > sure it would be reported. Then you could determine whether the bug is
> > severe enough to warrant a mask.
> >
>
> We're not talking about packages that work for the maintainer.  We're
> talking about packages where the maintainer doesn't know if they work.
> Or at least, those are the packages I'm talking about.

The debate is sort of two-pronged, and I split out the package.mask
question to another thread. There are 6 year old p.mask entries that
just say "masked for testing", and those are listed in the new thread I
started.

> Everybody seems to think that this is a debate between having newer
> ebuilds in the tree masked vs unmasked.  This is a debate between
> having newer ebuilds in the tree masked vs not having them in the tree
> at all.  Nobody is going to put an ebuild in the tree unmasked if they
> don't know that it is going to work, and per earlier comments anybody
> who does that probably shouldn't have commit privs.
 
 What was said earlier is if a maintainer just runs compile tests then
 commits the new version that person probably shouldn't have commit
 privs.

> Rules won't make maintainers do more work.  They can only prevent
> maintainers from doing certain kinds of work.  That is why I tend to
> oppose more rules unless they actually are preventing some kind of
> harm, or having a likely benefit.  I just don't see the benefit here.
 
 The benefit of getting packages into ~arch vs "masked for testing" is
 that maintainers can get users to test their packages in configurations
 that the maintainers are not able to test with.

 Also, it opens up the package to more testing because it will be
 exposed to more users with different configurations.

> I'm fine with a policy that says that packages should only be masked
> for testing if they're actually being tested and there is some kind of
> roadmap for getting rid of the mask.
 
 The problem I see with "masked for testing" is probably similar to what
 you are talking about. If something is "masked for testing", there
 should be a push from somewhere to not keep it "masked for testing".

> I don't like seeing 3 year old masks in the profile either.  Let's try
> to curtail that kind of thing.  However, I think we're in danger of
> throwing the baby out with the bath water here.  I cringe anytime I
> hear somebody say that ~arch has fewer issues than stable, but the
> solution to that isn't to go looking for opportunities to break ~arch.
 
 I don't like seeing old masks in the profiles either. p.mask
 should never be permanent, but there are other issues associated with
 making that happen that should be in other threads probably.

All I'm saying about ~arch is that it is known to break and will
continue to break, so lets not try to pretend otherwise. Someone in this
thread said ~arch is semi-stable; it is not. If you use ~arch you are on
your own and expected to be able to handle any breakage that comes up.

William