Re: [gentoo-project] Re: Questions for Candidates (was: Questioning/Interviewing council nominees)

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Rich Freeman schrieb:
> If a maintainer just hates having foo-1.2 in the tree because they put
> foo-1.3 in the tree yesterday, and foo-1.2 is stable on x86, we
> already require them to wait until 1.3 can be stabilized (perhaps
> rapidly if a security issue).  Maintainers already must coordinate
> with other projects.

I did not say that maintainers can ignore policy. The removal of ebuilds
must follow certain rules which are set in policy.

For example, you cannot ignore reverse dependencies when removing a
package. Also you are not allowed to drop the latest stable version of a
package without following proper procedure.

> However, if another dev wants to co-maintain and make that
> non-upstream patch USE-dependent and support the work, the original
> maintainer must allow them to do so.  If the x32 project wants to add
> a conditional patch to support their arch and they are willing to
> follow-through on support, the original maintainer must allow this.
> Non-maintainers must always collaborate with maintainers, but the
> intent of that isn't so that maintainers can block other projects.

With x32 specifically, a number of people including some upstreams think
that the whole concept is a bad idea. A case could be made for patches
that #ifdef x32 and which compile to a no-op on other arches, but even
those must be maintained. What if the patch no longer applies after a
version bump?

> I've been in the place of having somebody come along and bump an EAPI
> on me or make other changes that I'd honestly have been more
> comfortable taking my time with.

That's great, and I encourage all developers to allow this too. But I am
against forcing anybody.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn