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Pacho Ramos posted on Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:34:50 +0100 as excerpted: |
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> The current policy of maintainers dropping keywords after 90 days is |
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> simply not applied because it leads up to that maintainer needing to |
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> kill himself that keyword and ALL the reverse deps keywords and, then, |
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> all that effort should probably be replaced by making the opposite, I |
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> mean, reducing the stable tree of that arches to a minimum and moving |
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> all the other packages to testing. The main advantage of this is that it |
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> needs maybe more effort in one round but it solves the problem for the |
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> future. On the other hand trying to kill keywords of a package *and all |
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> its reverse deps* requires a lot of work every time the problem appears. |
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Perhaps my non-dev status prevents me from understanding the difficulty |
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here, but... I really don't see the problem. |
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1) I don't believe the 90-day policy was /supposed/ to be particularly |
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easy. It was supposed to be a pressure relief valve, to release pressure |
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only if it built up beyond a certain level, such that both archs and |
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package-devs could still live with the situation by keeping the pressure |
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from going off the scale at either location. |
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As a pressure reliever, what you defined as a bug I'd rather define as a |
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feature. If the situation gets bad enough and the pressure high enough, |
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there's an approved method to relieve it, but that method itself isn't |
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entirely pain-free, so it doesn't tend to be used until the pain of not |
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using it is worse than the pain of using it, which, I'd argue, is |
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functioning as intended. |
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2) The very requirement of having to kill ALL the reverse-deps seems to |
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me to already lessen the pressure necessary to tip the balance the next |
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time, since either it's not the problem its made out to be if it's only a |
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handful of packages, or within a few cycles of doing this, there will be |
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dramatically fewer packages keyworded in the first place to worry about, |
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and thus dramatically fewer packages to have to dekeyword this time |
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around. |
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Yes, the first time's going to be hell. And the second time could easily |
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be 90-95% as bad, particularly if the two packages are in separate areas |
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and there's little overlap. But the tenth? By then, the number of |
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packages still keyworded in the first place should be down enough to make |
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a difference. And the 20th? By then, things should be much more |
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reasonable. |
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So you're suggesting a flag day and volunteering to do most of the work. |
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I won't argue with that as I don't have a dog in this fight. But it |
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seems to me, by the time you do even say five existing 90-day- |
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dekeywording-policy actions, you'll either have something already looking |
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a lot more like the goal you outline above than the current state and |
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will be well on your way, or if that DIDN'T dekeyword enough packages to |
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already be easier, then by definition there's only a handful of such |
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dependencies in the first place. |
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Either way, I simply don't see the problem, certainly so when comparing |
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the work of just doing it under the existing policy, to fighting the |
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political war necessary to change it -- and even assuming a win, ending |
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up dekeywording pretty much the same set of packages as you'd have done |
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with a few rounds under the existing policy anyway. |
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Again, not that I disagree. As I said, no dog in this fight and I might |
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actually benefit by the developer time then freed up to work on fights I |
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do have a dog in. But I expect this question will come up in some form |
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in any case, and by answering it now, it'll already be dealt with. |
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Plus, I'm simply curious, as there's evidently an angle I'm blind to, and |
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now being aware of that blindness, it's disturbing enough to me that I |
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want to be rid of it, thus the question. =:^) |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |