Re: [gentoo-dev] Revisiting GLEP 19

[Stuart Herbert]

On Tuesday 20 July 2004 21:43, Dylan Carlson wrote:
> My thoughts on this are:
>
> 1/ Many Gentoo users want the ability to update packages for fixes only
> (and not just for servers)

That's simple - just don't do 'emerge sync; emerge -u world' on a daily basis.  
Only upgrade when you definitely need a fix.
</troll>

There's a serious point to that.  There should be some discussion to make sure 
we actually understand the problem we're trying to solve first ;-)

> 2/ Maintaining separate trees in CVS is probably asking too much of our
> current roster, plus requires adding infrastructure and getting everyone
> to mirror the new tree(s)

Agreed.

> 3/ Users already have a good understanding of what profiles are.  This is
> useful.

I believe that's an assumption not based in fact.

> 4/ Creating separate CVS trees while also using profiles seems superfluous.

Not sure about that.  I believe a profile is something that should never 
change once it's marked stable.  Right now, I don't see how that fits in with 
our ever-changing tree.

> Therefore I believe another possible solution is to change the way we use
> profiles (both in practice and in QA policy):
>
> Implications:
>
> 1/ archs will need to have a regular, predictable release schedule,
> probably at least every six months.

Why?  Not saying I don't agree, but it'd help if this assertion was justified.

> 2/ profiles will list specific package versions whenever possible.  e.g.:
> =sys-libs/glibc-2.3.2



> 3/ we will need to prepare a list of packages which should not change
> unless the user switches profiles.  those packages (e.g., toolchain) in
> the current, and older profiles do not get updated except for fixes.

I don't think this is sustainable.  Practically every new version of a package 
contains fixes compared to the one that it replaces.

> 4/ we will need to have a policy about how long we'll support a profile,
> and a procedure for end-of-lifing profiles. (probably don't want to
> support a single profile for more than 2 years)

Not *less* than 2 years, I'd have thought.  Some commercial systems are 
supported for 5 or even 10 years.

> 5/ we will need to have documentation for users who are upgrading from one
> profile to another (upgrade warnings, instructions and considerations)
> 6/ repoman will need to be enhanced to check the profiles before removing
> any ebuilds from the tree that might be needed.  specific versions pinned
> in profiles need to stay until the profile is changed.
>
> Potential problems:
>
> 1/ Makes KEYWORDS redundant

So every single one of our 8,000+ packages that's stable will have to be 
listed in one or more profiles?  That sounds impractical.

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                              stuart@g.o
Gentoo Developer                                       http://www.gentoo.org/
                                                   http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/

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