Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Aniruddha <mailing_list@××××××.nl>
To: "René 'Necoro' Neumann" <lists@××××××.eu>
Cc: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo <--> Sabayon Relation
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:33:31
Message-Id: 1186039997.9211.1.camel@Gentoo-Desktop
In Reply to: [gentoo-project] Gentoo <--> Sabayon Relation by "René 'Necoro' Neumann"
1 Sabayon is considered 'close' to Gentoo, but not necessarily 'very
2 close' (atleast in my view). The reason for this is because Sabayon uses
3 its own versions of some pretty major packages (browsing through their
4 overlay, I see packages like grub, xorg-x11 and xorg-server to name just
5 a few).
6
7 The problem is not that we (the Gentoo community) don't want to provide
8 official support, it's that we can't (beyond a certain point). Sabayon
9 provides its own version of many packages and these seem to (sometimes)
10 lag behind the official Gentoo tree. A case in example: The other day
11 someone came into #gentoo complaining that nvidia-drivers wouldn't
12 install with glibc-2.6. Glibc-2.6 no longer includes the nptl and
13 nptl-only USE flags, but the Sabayon package was still looking for them.
14 There's nothing the Gentoo developers can do about this - it would
15 require commit access to Sabayon's overlay. There's nothing much most
16 users can do about this - The only suggestion I could make was "ask in
17 #sabayon or use the package from the official tree".
18
19 This is a simple, obvious example of a change that caused problems.
20 There could easily be many much more subtle problems that break systems
21 in a much more subtle way. Most people in #gentoo will happily provide
22 support for Sabayon users, but if it becomes suspect that the problem
23 lies in using Sabayons packages, then there's frankly nothing we can do
24 as we don't know how Sabayon's packages differ, with most of us being
25 Gentoo users, not Sabayon users.
26
27 As for providing official support on Bugzilla, a Sabayon users first
28 point of call must be the Sabayon developers (via their Bugzilla). If
29 the Sabayon developers then determine that the problem lies in Gentoo's
30 tree, they should report it to the Gentoo developers (via Gentoo's
31 Bugzilla). This is the same way things work with Gentoo vs upstream.
32 Users report bugs on Gentoo's Bugzilla, if the developers determine that
33 the problem lies with the program itself, the problem will then be
34 reported to the packages developers (AKA upstream). There's a hierarchy
35 of responsability here, the model of which is generally followed
36 throughout the open source world. (To take the hierarchy further, the
37 packages developers may determine that the problem lies with a library
38 that they use, in which case they may report the bug to the library's
39 developers (further upstream)).
40
41 There are two seperate questions here, with seperate answers:
42 1) Can Gentoo's developers provide official support for Sabayon. The
43 answer is no - Sabayon users should report problems to Sabayon's
44 developers, who will then report the problem upstream if necessary.
45 2) Can Gentoo's community provide unofficial support for Sabayon. The
46 answer is yes - up until the problem is determined to be (possibly)
47 Sabayon specific - and it does.
48
49 To translate this on to the Debian vs Ubuntu example: If an Ubuntu user
50 asks for help in #debian, they'll get it, but if the Debian community
51 determines the problem is possibly Ubuntu specific, they'll tell the
52 user to go back to the Ubuntu community as there's nothing they can do.
53 If an Ubuntu user reports a problem to Debians bugzilla, the Debian devs
54 will tell them to go talk to the Ubuntu devs because there's nothing
55 they can do - they have no influence over the Ubuntu packages.
56
57 Beso:
58 Gentoo doesn't have kicker, an essential part of KDE in it's repository.
59 Right... This is exactly the problem... it does, and the differences may
60 cause bugs that manifest themselves outside of Kicker in subtle ways.
61 The Gentoo developers have looked at the differences between the
62 repositories, and they aren't closed minded, but they haven't got the
63 time to run through every problem from Sabayon users to determine
64 themselves if it's a problem with Gentoo or Sabayon. There is a chain of
65 responsability here and for Sabayon users it starts with the Sabayon
66 developers, just as with Ubuntu users it starts with the Ubuntu
67 developers.
68
69 In summary:
70
71
72
73 * Sabayon is NOT Gentoo. Sabayon is CLOSE TO Gentoo.
74 * The Gentoo community does provide unofficial support for Sabayon
75 users.
76 * Sabayon users should report problems to Sabayons developers, who
77 will then report the problem upstream (which may or may not be
78 the Gentoo developers) if necessary.
79 * If it's a Sabayon specific problem, then only people who know
80 Sabayon (ie. the Sabayon community) are going to be able to help
81 solve it.
82
83
84
85 http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-541789-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-sabayon-start-100.html
86
87
88
89 On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 21:22 -0700, René 'Necoro' Neumann wrote:
90
91 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
92 > Hash: SHA1
93 >
94 > Hey guys,
95 >
96 > I'd like to discuss a topic that I know much people will use for
97 > trolling/flaming or similar. If you feel like this - get you a weapon
98 > and cool down, but please do not answer :)
99 >
100 > I start this discussion as I'm inspired by some posts at drobbin's blog.
101 >
102 > The first thing:
103 > What is the actual (official) attitude towards Sabayon?
104 >
105 > If it is as I think it is (negative) - why is it like this? Why isn't
106 > Sabayon treated as an official "child project"? Why is support denied
107 > for Sabayon Users? - I know that they have a global ~$ARCH and some
108 > not-so-nice hacks ;), but this shouldn't be a reason, as problems
109 > related to this shouldn't be the major part...
110 >
111 > I want just to propose, that the devs should be more open for Sabayon -
112 > and see it as a source of ideas and software. If lxnay will finish
113 > Entropy (and it helds what it is supposed ;)) - it will add a feature
114 > that is often asked for and always declined as "not possible". (And
115 > there may be other stuff ...)
116 >
117 >
118 > Hmm ... I had several other thoughts but forgot them during the day :/.
119 > So again: Only serious, constructive answers :)
120 >
121 > - -- Nec
122 >
123 > P.S.: Nope - I'm not a Sabayon User :)
124 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
125 > Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
126 > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
127 >
128 > iD8DBQFGsVwP4UOg/zhYFuARAgJ7AJ4ly6n/vGhKxFby7HpvFdNyEGw96ACdF6VV
129 > kHM9MZIKcpQrtDS6zb37IGs=
130 > =JwcP
131 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----