Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Council Reminder for February 26

[Brian Harring]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 01:42:38PM +0100, Gilles Dartiguelongue wrote:
> Le mardi 24 février 2009 à 09:47 -0800, Brian Harring a écrit :
> > On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:26:48PM -0800, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> > > This is your friendly reminder! Same bat time (typically the 2nd & 4th
> > > Thursdays at 2000 UTC / 1600 EST), same bat channel (#gentoo-council @
> > > irc.freenode.net) !
> >
> > Informal request, but it would be useful to get an idea of the
> > councils views on portage overlay compatibility issues.
> >
> > Specifically, when it comes to gentoo repositories, there is one, and
> > only one definition of what that is- pms's repo spec.  The problem
> > here is that the only repository truly conformant to that spec is
> > gentoo-x86, for the rest of the repositories (overlays realistically)
> > whatever portage supports seems to be the eventual standard they grow
> > towards.
> >
> > Problem with this is that there is *zero* way to spot these non-pms
> > repositories as it stands.  Simplest example, under portage overlays
> > can unmask pkgs globally (gnome overlay reverting masks in
> > gentoo-x86),
>
> I reply here as part of the gnome herd and partly responsible for the
> mask reverting in the overlay. I didn't know something used in
> gentoo-x86 couldn't be used in an overlay.

Suspect I wasn't clear; you *can* use things from the parent (although 
that whole relationship is outside of PMS); the problem here is that 
y'all are reverting something in the *master*.

Literally, bug-buddy was masked in gentoo-x86; enabling your overlay 
reverts that masking in *gentoo-x86*.  Only reason this even works is 
due to portage internals being limited (everything is stacked 
together, no true standalones possible).

> Could you point me to the PMS section that treat this ?
Flip through the package.mask section (snagging from profiles.tex 
directly)-

"""
Note that the \t{-spec} syntax can be used to remove a mask in a 
parent profile, but not necessarily a global mask (from 
\t{profiles/package.mask}, section~\ref{profiles-package.mask}).

\note Portage currently treats \t{profiles/package.mask} as being on 
the leftmost branch of the inherit tree when it comes to \t{-lines}. 
This behaviour may not be relied upon.
"""

Note the 'parent profile'.  Why they're claiming repo level masking 
can't be reversed for that repo, not sure (reasonably sure several 
profiles rely on it).  Either way, your overlay is trying to revert 
entries it doesn't have in that stack.

Only reason it flies for portage is because it collapses it all into 
one stack; for managers designed to support multiple standalone repos 
that assumption no longer applies, thus that behaviour (outside of 
PMS) breaks.

~harring