Re: [gentoo-dev] New QA policy suggestion: Disallow "live-only" packages

[Joonas Niilola]

On 11/4/20 8:18 PM, Alec Warner wrote:
>
> I disagree. These packages are not installable by default, and must be
> unmasked by users, so this tradeoff is one we expect them to make. Are
> there practical problems that these packages pose to developers? You
> listed a bunch of user problems, but again users are opting into these
> problems, presumably.
I just managed to install Gentoo yesterday, today I want package x and
apparently it's masked? I type emerge --autounmask-write x because the
guide told me so without understanding any of the concerns (that are
also written in devmanual) listed above. I have no idea what I'm doing,
but at least I got the package on stable system... if upstream wasn't so
broken currently.

Now imagine you're a developer and you need a certain library to develop
your software, but the upstream repo has been broken for weeks or
months. You couldn't emerge the package, but if there was a snapshot
available to a latest working commit, it could save a lot of your time.

>
> But again, why are we making this a firm policy; as opposed to letting
> the maintainer make their decision?
Look where maintainer decision got us, majority of these ebuilds being
broken, outdated and totally ignored. There aren't that many packages
available right now, but the state could still be cleaner.

Wouldn't you like the solution offered by mgorny, where there could be a
time-limit for these -9999-only packages?

>  
>
> We can't guarantee any package to build..so I'm not sure how this is a
> practical policy goal.
>
> -A
Sure we can. You test it before you push, then it hits at least two
tinderboxes currently. Before stabilization multiple test runs are made.
I do trust the current state of Gentoo packages being better and better
each day.

-- juippis