Re: [gentoo-dev] Vanilla sources stabilization policy change

[Tom Wijsman]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2013 20:16:59 +0200
Peter Stuge <peter@×××××.se> wrote:

> Alex Xu wrote:
> > >>> Maybe it would make sense to automatically stabilize every v-s
> > >>> kernel right away?
> > >>
> > >> As has been stated, this implies that Gentoo QA has tested the
> > >> packages and found them to be reasonably safe for use.
> > > ..
> > >> Although stable kernels *have* been tested by many people before
> > >> use, Gentoo QA has *not* (officially) tested them, at least not
> > >> on every architecture.
> > >
> > > I don't think that matters.
> >
> > If you don't care too much for Gentoo QA
>
> The point is that when arch teams find that they can not keep up with
> the pace of upstream and choose never to attempt stabilize v-s then
> clearly Gentoo QA will also not be able to keep up with that pace and
> thus Gentoo QA becomes irrelevant for the particular package.

No, stabilization of vanilla-sources would be an addition in work
required; one can not assume that if gentoo-sources is stable than
vanilla-sources is or vice versa. Also, the premise here is that
vanilla-sources would need to be stabilized every version; and not just
once per branch (we would like two or three though) as gentoo-sources.

> The original post also mentioned that generally v-s has more fixes
> than anything coming from stabilization efforts.

More fixes; but also more regressions, new features, more 0-days, ...

> It seems that for this package Gentoo QA can not realistically add
> any value to this package, hence my suggestion not to pretend that
> they can, and just remove the distinction between ~arch and arch for
> v-s, and make the latest version available to users by default.

That's a contradiction; their added value is it being deemed stable,
they can't just pretend it is stable, that overrides the distinction.

For as far that I know there is nowhere in the tree we provide matters
that walk past Gentoo; so, why should they make an exception here?

> > >> On a technical level, it's not that hard to put
> > >> "sys-kernel/vanilla-sources" in your package.accept_keywords.
> > >
> > > But why should Gentoo users have to do that in order to use v-s?
> >
> > So they acknowledge that vanilla-sources has not been officially
> > tested by Gentoo QA.
>
> Since v-s is a special case that Gentoo QA is known not to handle,
> this overhead seems completely unneccessary to me. And the usability
> is of course poor.

If Gentoo QA can't handle it, why could our users; if they are to make
a poor sense of stability, that suffices to make it an explicit choice.

> > > If it is intentional to push g-s onto users then it makes good
> > > sense
> ..
> > I can't comment on that.
>
> I guess this is really the pivotal point. If Gentoo prefers to push
> g-s rather than v-s then adding overhead for v-s kernels is fine. I'd
> prefer Gentoo to push v-s instead.

If this weren't intentional, we wouldn't be doing this; the kernel team
exists to add value and not just to blindly follow upstream.

Let me quote the project description:

"With an ever increasing userbase demanding a higher quality of stable,
production-ready kernel sources and featureful desktop support the
professionalism and staffing of the kernel project is very important.

Because we as users want the best from Gentoo Linux we supply a
selection of both generic and specialised sources capable of handling
the day-to-day grind to make life a little easier.

In order to provide a rich choice of high quality kernel trees Gentoo
Linux must apply, write and test several kernel patches to the official
upstream releases before they can offer finished ebuilds to the users.
This is where the Gentoo Kernel project comes into play."

-- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@g.o
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D