[gentoo-dev] Re: Versioning the tree

[Duncan]

Steve Long <slong@××××××××××××××××××.uk> posted
ekol7b$q8i$1@×××××××××.org, excerpted below, on  Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:23:09
+0000:

> Excellent; pkgcore really sounds great- is there any possibility that it'll
> become the new portage?

Possibility, yes.  It's not certain, as there are multiple contenders
(paludis is the other), and it will be some time, in any case.

The current problem is that there's no standard definition for what
constitutes an acceptable ebuild, beyond the basic gentoo dev guidelines.
The de facto definition is whatever works with versions of portage
currently in the tree (or just barely removed), but that presents many
difficulties, including both slow upgrades since backward compatibility
must be maintained for longer even when the former functionality is
considered b0rken, and questions of what's broken, the package manager or
the ebuild, when something fails to work as expected.

Thus, all three package managers, the current portage solution, and paludis
and pkgcore as well, are currently under slower development than they might
otherwise be, while interested parties attempt to hash out a working
standard definition of what actually constitutes a proper ebuild, and
what helper functions said ebuild can in fact depend upon the package
manager to make available.  Once that's decided and approved, the playing
field upon which the merits of the next generation package managers can be
judged will be much fairer for all.  Of course, with that defined, portage
itself will be freer to progress at speed as well, and it may be that it
will remain the default "approved" solution for quite some time.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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