Re: [gentoo-user] What happens with masked packages?

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

On Sunday 26 February 2006 11:06, Bo Andresen <bo.andresen@×××××.com> wrote 
about 'Re: [gentoo-user] What happens with masked packages?':
> On Sunday 26 February 2006 06:16, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> > Again, hard to do automatically.  Wheras, if I could just set
> > ACCEPT_UPSTREAM="BETA" I'd get all the betas.  Or I could use
> > package.upstream and but in "kde-extra/kaffeine ALPHA" and get
> > anything assigned more than a snapshot number for that package.
> > (Instead of manually checking after each sync to see if there's a new,
> > masked version.)
>
> How exactly is is you want this to work.

My proposal at this point, would be for an additional restriction on 
packages based on a new UPSTREAM variable in the ebuild itself, 
ACCEPT_UPSTREAM variable in make.conf / the environment, and the 
package.upstream file in /etc/portage.

These would be directly analogous to KEYWORDS, ACCEPT_KEYWORDS, and 
package.keywords, as would its interaction with package.mask.

> I mean for example
> gaim-2.0.0_beta2-r1 is a beta and it's very unstable (well, it crashed
> occasionally for me). In order to get it you need to put it in
> package.unmask and package.keywords.

For any specific package, I'd have to know why it's in package.mask and why 
it's ~ARCH instead of ARCH.

If something like my proposal were actually implemented, there would be 
some transitional period that you might see a _beta ebuild in package.mask 
or marked as ~ARCH simply because it's beta, but that would go away with 
new ebuilds (well, not entirely...)

Hazarding a guess for this package, I'd say it would be removed from 
package.mask but the ebuild would retain the ~ARCH instead of ARCH 
(likely, the ebuild is also unstable, but I don't know.)

> Do you want to have to put it
> package.upstream too?

Yes, you'd have to add 'net-im/gaim BETA' to package.upstream if you wanted 
all gaim betas.  Many users would probably be better served with 
'=net-im/gaim-2* BETA'.

You could remove it from your package.unmask because it wouldn't have to be 
masked by package.unmask (the default ACCEPT_UPSTREAM would not include 
BETA).

> Or don't you want it to be masked even though it's
> very unstable?

I would like package.mask reserved for migration issues, package suite 
issues, and ebuilds and packages that destructively interfere with other 
packages.

I'm guessing that the gaim beta doesn't have any of these issues, so it 
would not be in package.mask but would be labeled UPSTREAM="BETA".

> Should package.upstream override package.mask?

No, it would only change your ACCEPT_UPSTREAM for certain packages, similar 
to the way package.keywords changes your ACCEPT_KEYWORDS.

At this point, I'd really like to take this theoretical discussion off the 
the general user list; I doubt many users will be interested.  I haven't 
done any coding work on this proposal or even began writing a GLEP, so 
this is all theory without any action at this point.

I'm absolutely willing and eager to discuss things further via private 
email.  My email address is in the from header, unmunged.  I just don't 
want to waste the bandwidth of users that aren't interested in my 
vapor-proposal.

-- 
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh
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