[gentoo-dev] [RFC] package masking too conservative?

[gentoo-dev] [RFC] package masking too conservative?

[Jani Monoses]

Hi all
no flame bait or anything but IMHO some packages are way too much in the
masked state. I don't know the exact QA policy but it's probably do not
annoy users by installing bleeding-edge software let the brave ones
unmask explicitely. This is fine but I think it's applied to generically
While I understand that few people would want the latest glibc, XFree
snapshot or KDE form CVS, masking also applies to standalone programs
which don't really affect general system stability. Many of these are
programs in active development with pretty frequent releases where the
developers are looking for feedback and where they generally release
when they consider they improved.There are probably counter-examples
too though...
Ex: ebuilds for subversion , distcc, valgrind, scons  are either
entirely masked or generally lagging behind a couple of releases wrt the
'unstable' ebuild.
The policy that 'if for an amount of time there are no bugs reported
against' they are made stable is again two-edged: there's less testing
of latest releases so only a smaller procent of the gentoo crowd
actually provides feedback to their development. More like those RPM
based distros :)

Especially because many tools I find are undeservingly masked are
developer oriented so there's a greater chance feedback will be sane and
prompt.

I'd propose to loosen this policy a bit, but then again who am I?

Jani

cc: please


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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] package masking too conservative?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 12:07, Jani Monoses wrote:
> Hi all
> no flame bait or anything but IMHO some packages are way too much in the
> masked state. I don't know the exact QA policy but it's probably do not
> annoy users by installing bleeding-edge software let the brave ones
> unmask explicitely. This is fine but I think it's applied to generically
> While I understand that few people would want the latest glibc, XFree
> snapshot or KDE form CVS, masking also applies to standalone programs
> which don't really affect general system stability. Many of these are
> programs in active development with pretty frequent releases where the
> developers are looking for feedback and where they generally release
> when they consider they improved.There are probably counter-examples
> too though...
> Ex: ebuilds for subversion , distcc, valgrind, scons  are either
> entirely masked or generally lagging behind a couple of releases wrt the
> 'unstable' ebuild.
> The policy that 'if for an amount of time there are no bugs reported
> against' they are made stable is again two-edged: there's less testing
> of latest releases so only a smaller procent of the gentoo crowd
> actually provides feedback to their development. More like those RPM
> based distros :)
> 
> Especially because many tools I find are undeservingly masked are
> developer oriented so there's a greater chance feedback will be sane and
> prompt.
> 
> I'd propose to loosen this policy a bit, but then again who am I?
> 
> Jani
> 
> cc: please
> 
> 
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Just my quick .02...

You can always mask packages which are ~arch.  After all, ~arch is the
"testing" branch in Gentoo, and not really considered an "unstable"
branch.  If you're willing to participate in testing, then you should
probably have KEYWORDS=~arch in your /etc/make.conf anyway.  The
"stable" branch is supposed to be tried and true.  You know it'll work. 
The idea is to not be sending packages which may be broken to
unsuspecting users.  Also, there is stable.gentoo.org, which can be used
to vote on packages that are in testing to make them stable.  I think if
more people were using this facility, it would provide for a much
quicker transition for many packages.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] package masking too conservative?

[Jani Monoses]

> > crowd actually provides feedback to their development. More like
> > those RPM based distros :)
> > 
> > Especially because many tools I find are undeservingly masked are
> > developer oriented so there's a greater chance feedback will be sane
> > and prompt.
> > 
> > I'd propose to loosen this policy a bit, but then again who am I?
> > 
> > Jani
> > 
> > cc: please
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> Just my quick .02...
> 
> You can always mask packages which are ~arch.  After all, ~arch is the
> "testing" branch in Gentoo, and not really considered an "unstable"
> branch.  If you're willing to participate in testing, then you should
> probably have KEYWORDS=~arch in your /etc/make.conf anyway.  The

I'd like to test/use latest versions of most packages but not the latest
glibc for instance or something which might destabilize the whole
system. They are both under the same hat with the current ~arch setup.

Also if only packages with no bugs in them should be stable then
probably only /bin/yes, /bin/false, /bin/true and TeX would make it :)

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] package masking too conservative?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 02:37, Jani Monoses wrote:
> I'd like to test/use latest versions of most packages but not the latest
> glibc for instance or something which might destabilize the whole
> system. They are both under the same hat with the current ~arch setup.

Use /etc/portage/package.mask to pin your version of glibc/gcc/whatever
to the version you want until you feel comfortable with a higher
version.

> Also if only packages with no bugs in them should be stable then
> probably only /bin/yes, /bin/false, /bin/true and TeX would make it :)

Packages that have no apparent bugs that have shown up during the
"testing" phase.  No software is perfect.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux

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