Re: [gentoo-dev] */*: Mask Py2 only packages

[Thomas Deutschmann]

On 2020-06-20 21:24, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> Thomas, unfortunately, I am shocked at your choice of words here. I
> think it is reasonable that any developer would understand a lack
> of forward momentum in removing Py2 only packages only drives
> stagnation.
>
> If you have a more effective method to doing so, I am open to
> suggestions.

Like I am shocked about your recent actions:

Remember what you did in January. I thought it became clear that next
time you will share your list before just masking stuff to avoid things
which happened then.

In the beginning of this month you just decided to disband graphics
project. On your own. Please tell me what gave you the authority to just
do that? You didn't even share your plan before executing it on any
mailing list. Something that should be common sense, if not even necessary.
The whole action was so destructive that you couldn't evenb just undo it
because you also deleted stuff on Wiki.

And now you did it again with Py2-only packages.

And again for no good reason.

Like multiple people have already shown you, many packages from that
list are not even blocking Py3 transition.

Let me tell you what a mask will cause:
A mask is destructive and requires user interaction. Therefore a mask
isn't something to play with, "Oh, let's test if someone will
complain... it's just a mask, we can just unmask in case...".

No, imagine there are people out there using Gentoo in production and
not as playground. These people maybe have automated build systems which
are creating systems/images (do you know Dockers for example?). Whenever
you mask something and that package is referenced in configuration, you
will break that build.

That's not funny if this is happening for no real reason.


> re: net-mail/offlineimap... there are alternatives.

I think you don't really know that tool. It's an industry standard.
Sure, there are already successors (however, not in Gentoo). But the
package itself is still working and actively maintained and when you
will use it in production you usually have extended/adjusted the tool
for your environment using the plugin system the tool provides. That's
not something you will be able to replace with something new in 5 minutes.

And I repeat myself: Especially not when there is no need to do that
because because the package itself is working fine and there is absolute
no reason to get rid of it.

Last but not least: Gentoo is about choices. It's not your job to decide
what people should use. Sure, if you maintained a package and will stop
using it so it will become maintainer-needed and masked for removal at
some point because it's outdated, vulnerable and/or not working anymore,
that's OK. But if someone else will pick up this package... and
offlineimap in Gentoo is working and up-to-date.

Heck, we could even talk about how rude it is to force a maintainer to
drop its package. And yes, even p-m should be treated like real devs. So
you can't just kill their packages because you want to.


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
fpr: C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5