Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] Making "stabilization" a prerequisite to become a Gentoo Developer
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2017 08:14:51
Message-Id: 20171006081439.GA23456@clocktown
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] Making "stabilization" a prerequisite to become a Gentoo Developer by Rich Freeman
1 On Thu, Oct 05, 2017 at 04:18:42PM -0700, Rich Freeman wrote:
2 > (Apologies in advance if it seems like I'm picking on you. I want to
3 > make a point more than criticize you in particular, because I'm sure
4 > your motivation is care and not impediment.)
5
6 No worries. I appreciate the time spent to converse about it.
7
8 >
9 > On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 3:54 PM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:
10 > >
11 > > I don't arch test because (a) I don't use stable and (b) I don't want to
12 > > mess something up.
13 >
14 > And if everybody else does this then nobody will use stable, because
15 > it will be messed up. :)
16 >
17 > > There are also too many ways to do arch testing and
18 > > it's not clear which method is most reliable.
19 >
20 > The problem is that we need people do do some testing. If nobody
21 > tests anything because nobody has found the "most reliable" way to
22 > test things, then everybody will end up using completely untested
23 > software by default.
24 >
25 > IMO this is one of those situations where the perfect is the enemy of the good.
26 >
27 > > chroots can be problematic
28 > > since they have bound mounts to the host system and the interaction
29 > > between systems can present false positives for issues, and are fragile
30 > > to maintain. A VM comes with its own set of problems (drivers, I/O,
31 > > admin overhead), and containers are a world all their own.
32 > >
33 >
34 > Obviously testing grub in a chroot isn't going to work. However,
35 > unless you're doing testing of drivers/kernel/bootloader/etc a chroot
36 > will be fine for just about anything. A container would be even
37 > better, and the difference between a container and a chroot is about 2
38 > shell commands.
39 >
40 > > Perhaps arch testing would be more attractive if there was One True Way™
41 > > to setup an arch testing system
42 >
43 > I think arch testing would be more effective if people stopped
44 > worrying about the One True Way and just did some arch testing, any
45 > way they can. Just about every stable keyword in the tree is the
46 > result of this, and this is how it has always been on Gentoo.
47 >
48 > The moment I post a suggested One True Way somebody is going to point
49 > out one bug in the last 10 years that would have escaped detection,
50 > and suggest that nothing should be keyworded until a rigorous 300 step
51 > process has been run, featuring tinderboxes that nobody is bothering
52 > to build, and automated tests that nobody is going to write. Then
53 > we'll bikeshed for six months about the pros and cons of 14 different
54 > methods of tinderbox log analysis, and people will start wondering why
55 > the subject line says something about stable keywords. :)
56 >
57 > > and higher level tools to facilitate bug
58 > > interaction.
59 >
60 > That would certainly be lovely, but it requires somebody to build
61 > those tools, and I don't see that as a short term solution.
62 >
63 > I think that encouraging devs to be a little less afraid of mistakes
64 > is probably the right way to go. There is a balance between paralysis
65 > and running around just keywording everything in sight without even
66 > bothering to build it. If you get feedback that something broke just
67 > do things a little differently next time. The fact that some dev got
68 > yelled at by QA because he ran some shell script that wrought havoc
69 > upon the tree 6 years ago isn't a reason why everybody should be
70 > afraid to make a good-faith effort.
71 >
72 > If the Council wants proposals for a resolution to define for once and
73 > all what "stable" means I can toss something out there. Short of that
74 > I suggest that the people actually bothering to keyword stuff are
75 > going to get to write the rules...
76 >
77 > --
78 > Rich
79 >
80
81 Solid points, some I hadn't thought of. If I get the spare time, I'll
82 consider setting up a chroot, even if its only for stabilizing packages
83 I'm familiar with. In the aggregate, it could reduce testing burden over
84 the long term.
85
86 Thanks for giving me a reason to reconsider.

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