Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Disable --autounmask auto-unmasking keywords / masks by default

[Zac Medico]

On 10/9/19 4:53 PM, Kent Fredric wrote:
> One of the recurring problems we face in #gentoo is end users coming
> to us with confusing problems, and their problems are exacerbated
> because their default workflow ended up with them unmasking some **
> version of perl.
>
> There is already a bug for this behaviour [1], and comments say that
> portage doing this is "a bug", but the situations which it occurs in
> are hard to diagnose what the "real problem" is.
>
> Much of the time, what has occurred is there was some other problem,
> and portage bodged its way around the real problem by choosing a
> solution that should be considered unacceptable, instead of presenting
> the real problem.
>
> Some of the time, the cause is as simple as a single package being
> installed that isn't in the @world dependency graph any more, which is
> tripping up portage slot-rebuild behaviour.
>
> In practice, what this currently means is that stable users end up
> installing *developmental/experimental* packages that exist only for
> experts and gentoo maintainers, and this is an unacceptable resolution.
>
> If this behaviour was being triggered by anything other than portage's
> dependency resolver failing, it would be considered a serious QA
> violation.
>
> Its understood that portage maintainers want to "fix" this behaviour so
> the problem doesn't occur, but until that can be done, the present
> default behaviour is actively harmful, and I suggest it be disabled by
> default until it can be guaranteed to give the right results.
>
> 1: https://bugs.gentoo.org/658648
>

I'd prefer to disable --autounmask by default and include warnings about
harmful behavior in the documentation.
-- 
Thanks,
Zac