Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Weekly News Letter - "Where is Gentoo Linux 1.4"

["Philippe Lafoucrière" <lafou@wanadoo.fr>]

> There are two versions: release versions and profile versions.
> 
> Release versions _only apply to install media_.



> Profile versions (such as default-x86-1.4) define the characteristics of 
> your installed system.

I know that. This is not cleary explained on gentoo website. Newbies may
be confused about that.

> 1.4 isn't out because it's not ready. Frankly, I can cook you up a 
> half-baked LiveCD and set of stages with absolutely no value over rc4 
> right now, if you're that obsessed with having something out there with 
> '1.4' on it. Instead, we're trying to get you, the user, things like 
> GRP, an enhanced LiveCD, automatic CFLAGS generation and kernel initrd 
> creation, and so on.

That what I said. What's wrong with rc4 livecd ? Gentoo is experiencing
some bad use of RCs. RC is a release Candidate. It means that no more
feature would appear between 2 RCs. A new RC is just fixed bugs.

Here is some confusion between RC and BETA I think. Since you add some
features, Gentoo 1.4 RC4 is in fact GENTOO 1.4 BETA4 (yeah, it sucks).

> Futurely we will probably be removing 'rc' from the version number 
> because it suggests 'beta' to people, which is not the case. We will 
> probably move to a system like 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2...

I hope. User/Newbies would better understand.

> I am not sure what you mean by 'project leader' - do you think that 
> currently there is nobody in charge at all? Perhaps you can elaborate 
> here. (Daniel Robbins is effectively our 'project leader' - I am the 
> releases coordinator.)

I've never seen a mail of Daniel Robbins here. I saw his name on
gentoo.org, and some IBM articles (developper works).Gentoo management
is really "opaque".

> What kinds of communication are you looking for? When anyone has asked, 
> I have been happy to tell them what's going on with releases. With 
> regards to a roadmap, what kind of roadmap? For what in particular? 
> Portage? Releases?

First, for that:

"""
        * Baselayout independent of tmpfs
        * CFLAGS documentation or a tool that gives CFLAGS-building
          functionality
        * GRP creation and testing
        * Kernelscript to help ppl configure their kernel
"""

You'll have to read all newsletters to find such infos. Newbies won't.
Maybe we lack a section on the gentoo website.

> Looking for constructive suggestions

Take a look at a simple but precise Roadmap :
http://kopete.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=roadmap

note : there are no dates in front of tasks !

This would help so much since volonteers would help on remaining tasks,
instead of asking every time.


best regards 
Philippe


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list