[gentoo-dev] Use of --update: suggestion

[David Chamberlain <david@trailheadcoffee.com>]

I have a suggestion which might at least avoid some of the complaints 
the libpng issue has generated.  The idea might have been mentioned 
before, but if so, I think it bears repeating.

The problem seems to be that many people don't quite understand what 
they're getting with Gentoo - in particular, that it's up to them to 
decide whether or not to upgrade fully functional software and risk 
breaking their system.  The ideas about stability levels etc. have some 
merit, but it won't fix that basic problem.  So, I strongly suggest 
modifying the --upgrade command so that it behaves like unmerge - i.e. 
it asks the user if they really want to go ahead.  --update world 
should be forced to act like --pretend, so that the user has to see 
what's going to be upgraded, and has to at least click enter once to 
set the upgrade in motion.  There could be a flag in make.conf that 
power users could set to skip all this, but the default would be to ask 
for confirmation.  The message might be something like this:
=======================================
The following packages will be upgraded by this command:
sys-libs/verydangerouslib
x11-wm/sillywm
Please understand that the latest release of any software package can 
contain bugs or compatibility problems that might damage your system; 
if you do not have to upgrade, you might want to reconsider.  You can 
always upgrade individual packages to a trusted version by using a 
command like "emerge 
/usr/portage/x11-base/xfree/xfree-4.1.0-r6.ebuild".  
SO: are you sure you want to proceed? [Y n]"
========================================