Re: [gentoo-dev] KDE 3.2.3

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Fri, 2004-07-09 at 13:56, Alexander Gretencord wrote:
> Well someone on the kde team should, right? Or if you rely on user input,
> automatically push new versions from ~x86 to x86 when no user has complained
> (it's easier to complain than to state "everything works fine", especially
> when you don't use all of kde, I personally would never find a problem with
> kdegames as I don't install it). But I do use kdepim and if I find a problem
> with it I report it to the KDE bug system. However, I have not found any
> error that was the ebuilds fault. Should I file a bug stating "kdepim merged
> fine and seems to work ok a week after merging"?

A week is fine... a month is better.

> > The fact is that, with the way portage is structured and the commands you
> > have to use to properly make the submittals, it takes me well over an hour
> > to bump a version for KDE.
>
> For getting it from ~x86 to x86? If that's really the case then perhaps this
> should open a wider discussion: a) Need more developers as most do have a
> real life besides gentoo or b) make it simpler!

Considering KDE has many dependencies, *and* many things that depend on
it, I don't see how it could be made any simpler.  More developers are
definitely needed, not only on the KDE team, but on most of them.

> > Considering the fact that it's volunteer time on my part, it gets put down
> > on my priority list.
>
> Then its the job of someone who does get paid to make it easier for the
> volunteers to get the job done, right?

Nobody at Gentoo gets paid to work for Gentoo.

> > So, if you want to be part of the solution, start being proactive in
> > helping to fix bugs and get ebuilds submitted.
>
> The ebuild is almost always there when I want to upgrade a package it just
> sits in ~x86 ...

package.unmask and package.keywords are your friends.  Learn them!  Use
them!  Love them!

> > and it gets to be a bit frustrating to have to try and explain over and over
> > again.
>
> Have a standard reply to paste, also stating you just don't have the time to
> answer everyone personally. Its still better than saying nothing because
> you're overworked. In the time you explain this to all of those people you
> could move lots of packages to x86 :)

I'm sure he isn't wasting that much time replying... ;]

This tends to come up about every 3 months or so.  Perhaps we should
just all bookmark this thread on gmane and next time it comes up, simply
paste them the URL and end the discussion right there.

> > That said, there's absolutely no harm in kde sitting as ~x86 for 3.2.3.
> > It's still completely installable, and portage is configurable enough so as
> > to not complain to you to downgrade.
>
> Yes there is harm in it. When I first see a package in ~x86 after the official
> release I think there might be a problem with it and don't merge it until I
> can't stand it any more and just merge it as I want to have a fix for all the
> bugs I reported for the last version of kde :)
>
> Still, if I just edit the various files in /etc/portage/ I might at some time
> get a really unusable version of an ebuild which would not be the case if the
> build sat in ~x86 for a week or so before going to x86.

No ebuild should ever move to stable after a week.  The "Gentoo
standard" is 30 days.

> I really thought that an ebuild automatically went to x86 after some time of
> no complaints, until now...

Definitely not.  What system would possibly be able to know if there
were complaints?  Would we have it parse bugzilla? #gentoo? gentoo-user?

How about the forums?

> All that being said, I do understand that you all have a real life, work and
> family to attend to. Maybe gentoo should get more developers and skip ~x86
> until they have :) I would really like to help besides reporting a bug or two
> once in a while, if it wasn't so much work. What good would I do when all I
> could spend was and hour or two every few days. Or a whole day once in a
> while and then nothing for a week?

Honestly, if you think ~x86 should be skipped, then perhaps you should
be running it, instead.  After all, you seem more than willing to help
with "testing" which is exactly what the ~arch KEYWORDS are all about. 
We don't put things that we know are broken into the tree.  Not as
~arch, and not as stable.

Funny enough, your "free time" to help out is about the same as most
Gentoo developers.  Remember that absolutely *none* of us is paid and we
all have jobs/school/families to attend to other than Gentoo.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering QA Manager/Games Developer
Gentoo Linux

Is your power animal a penguin?