Re: [gentoo-dev] What should be in place before 1.0 release

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg <karltk@prosalg.no>]

On Sun, 14 Oct 2001 16:37:23 -0400
Blue Lizard <webmaster@dofty.zzn.com> wrote:

> bugzilla _could_ handle this, but while it is technically ready enough 
> our development team is in no way prepared to handle the influx of new 
> users that would find it a pain in the neck to use.

Then we find something that's easier to use. We really want this to
further Gentoo development, not hamper it. I do not think our current
system with sporadic mails to the gentoo-dev (and sometimes
gentoo-ebuild!) list is good enough. 

> A good way for ebuild to handle apps that dont flag/opt well would be 
> nice, other than hard coding everything :)  Like if a build is known to 
> spark out when a given portion is compiled -O3, knock it down to -O2 
> (IOW ebuild parses out flags in make.conf and handles wisely, according 
> to the writers instructions.)

We already do this some places, but it is tricky and highly error-prone
since it sometimes requires large amounts of bash wizardry. (Look for -Ox
where x > 2, then bump down to two. If x is s, then remove -Ox altogether,
etc).

Then again, the bash wizardry is what we're (not) paid to do. It's just
that I abhor having to maintain tricky code. The tricky part should be
getting the code to be easy to write an maintain, not making tricky code
out of relatively simple problems. </rant>

> > 4) In a related note, we should have a
> > "grace-period"/"codeslush"/"codefreeze" of at least one week where we
do
> > not add new stuff, and do nothing but bug-squashing. We should verify
that
> > *all* ebuilds have been tested, preferrably with *all* their optional
USE
> > arguments.
> 
> You are out of your mind.  One week?  DUDE!  This is a 1.0 release of 
> what could be a major mainstream linux distribution.  One week?

"at least" should be taken to mean "at minimum", "no less than", or
"certainly more wouldn't hurt" ;p

> Yes, and the idea is that up until the very minute that feature freeze 
> goes into effect, anything and everything goes on that list.  Someone 
> gets the slightest little notion of something that'd be cool and POOF!, 
> on the list.  Just that stuff more whimish than others would be in a 
> diff priority class for obvious reasons.

Exactly why I started the wishlist thread, and why I now intend to
maintain a wishlist on our site.

> Who is in charge of evangelism and propoganda right now?

No one in particular, but drobbins is using his connections with IBM's
DeveloperWorks for all it's worth. The rest of the developers are of
course plugging Gentoo whenever (in)appropriate.


Kind regards,

Karl T