Re: [gentoo-dev] Several portage trees

[Peter Fein <pfein@pobox.com>]

On Fri, 25 Apr 2003 14:36:53 +0200
foser <foser@foser.dyn.warande.net> wrote:

> Francisco Gimeno wrote:
> > Hi
> > 
> > I was wondering about having several portage trees to allow external 
> > distributor having repositories of packages.
> <snip>
> > It could be really useful, if we could use something like it
> 
> This has been brought up before and I personally do not really like the 
> idea too much, i think it makes the distro less reliable as whole if we 
> add options like this. People will start using repositories here and 
> there and in the end we will get bugreports on ebuilds we never approved 
> or even saw (and some ebuilds can have far reaching effects). No, i 
> think 'external distributors' should try and go trough the normal 
> channels and get their ebuilds Gentoo approved.

I think a note saying "DON"T DO THIS UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING",
as is done elsewhere would suffice.  Given the recent volume on ebuild approval,
that's not much of an counter-argument.  I agree that inclusion in Gentoo-proper
is a worthy goal - but as a user, not being restricted to blessed packages
should be my choice (and of course, no one's under any obligation to support any
of this to begin with, but it's worth discussing). Maybe I'm less scared of
stability issues running Gentoo on a home box that could erupt into flames
without causing me much distress, but this should be a matter of choice, rather
than a policy enforced by software.  Such a scheme may actually speed up package
acceptance, as it provides a wider test base prior to inclusion.

> > 
> > I think it solves a lot of complains about flexibility and edging of Gentoo.
> > 
> 
> What complaints ? Is it so hard to download an ebuild in put it in your 
> local overlay ? The extra step required does make sure you are aware 
> that you are using non-approved ebuilds.

I'd be aware I'd be using non-approved ebuilds if I set those vars in the first
place & portage warned/notified me which repository it was installing from. 
This architecture rocks - restricting it to approved packages only deprives
folks of a really great tool (wow, I'm sounding awfully "software wants to be
free" today...).

--Pete

-- 
Peter Fein
pfein@pobox.com
773-575-0694

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