[Bug 304435] Developer Handbook should document how/when to touch arch profiles' files (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [Bug 488318] media-video/mpv[luajit] - Keyword request on alpha, arm, ppc, ppc64, sparc)

[Tom Wijsman <TomWij@gentoo.org>]

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On Mon, 21 Oct 2013 20:16:01 +0100
Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Lets calm down a little bit. Our documentation is nowhere near perfect
> and common sense is not always obvious (we have hundreds of people
> claiming that the opposite). Instead of arguing in public how about we
> contribute some patches in devmanual to avoid similar problems in the
> future?

Hello, that indeed should be the way to go; but I came across something
relevant to this, as I was searching for an unrelated devmanual bug.

It seems like we do should discuss this in public:

    https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304435#c33 (Comment 33)

Looking a bit back up, it seems I've got a blanket to touch them:

    https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304435#c23 (Comment 23)

And that's also probably why a lot of other people have done so.

Though I agree with Jeroen Roovers as to why not to, because it results
in more work (as more files are touched) and there are some arches that
simply don't want it. So, I think we should proceed with discussing
this amongst the architectures and perhaps council and then proceed on
getting it into the devmanual so that we can act consistently.

Therefore I suggest that the arch teams and/or the council clarify when
developers can touch which files in the architecture sub directories of
profiles/.

I do want to help by writing up a patch, but I'd like to see consensus
first to avoid documenting something that not every arch team follows.

I'd suggest we discuss and/or vote on Jeroen Roovers' opinion:

    http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/88609

Prior discussion that lead to this:

    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/88562 (frames)
    http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/dev/279926 (plain)

The bug that has lead to the prior discussion:

    https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=488318

Prior discussion with Jeroen Roovers' opinion that was not answered to:

    http://gentoo.2317880.n4.nabble.com/best-way-to-use-profiles-and-package-use-mask-td16465.html

Please note that I do not intend a negative connotation with the word;
I agree with it, as it seems like common sense to me. But I just label
it opinion because I am unsure if this is collaborative knowledge [or
common sense] among archictecture teams; in any case, for outstanders
this is undocumented which can lead to moments of misunderstanding.

Thank you very much in advance.

CC-ed: Arch leads, frequent arch member, related persons, council.

-- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@gentoo.org
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D

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