Re: [gentoo-dev] Unmasking modular X

[Marius Mauch]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:32:00 -0800
Donnie Berkholz <spyderous@g.o> wrote:

> Mark Loeser wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:06:12 -0800 Donnie Berkholz
> >>> <spyderous@g.o> wrote:
> >>> What's wrong with the original idea of just making any unported
> >>> ebuild pull in all of modular X (minus drivers)? Yes, it means
> >>> that some people will pick up unnecessary deps until all packages
> >>> are ported, but it avoids anyone having to see flashy red errors.
> >> The problem with that is that it removes all motivation to ever
> >> port the packages. They'll just stay that way forever, where
> >> forever means "until I threaten to remove that from the virtual,"
> >> in which case we'll be in the same scenario we are now. Why?
> >> Because people have better things to do than fix stuff that isn't
> >> broken.
> >
> > It'd be nice if you reconsidered this as it will minimize any
> > breakage that may occur.  Knowing that >800 packages are broken,
> > and going to unmask it knowing that just doesn't seem acceptable in
> > my eyes.  ~arch isn't meant to be "things are known to be broken."
> > It's meant to mean, we think all of this is ready to be stable,
> > which it certainly won't be in this case.
>
> No, it won't. It will just postpone the same breakage, as I said
> above. You haven't provided any logic or backup to your contrary
> statement, just said that somehow a large portion of the other 800
> will magically get ported.
>
> Let me break this down again: of that 800, about 250 are unmaintained
> packages according to metadata.xml or lack thereof. About 200 are
> games. About 150 more belong to largely inactive herds. That's
> roughly 600 that we already know will not get ported in a timely
> fashion, if left to their maintainers, all because of lack of
> manpower. What do you propose to deal with them? All I've heard
> besides mine is proposals that delay the same breakage, not actually
> get anything fixed.

How about delaying it as long as n packages are ported per day? Kinda
stupid idea, but it ensures that things won't get hold up due to
unmaintained packages/inactive devs and might even speed the process up
(that's an illusion probably).

Marius

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