Re: [gentoo-dev] last rites: sys-fs/eudev

[orbea <orbea@riseup.net>]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2023 01:19:22 +0200
Arsen Arsenović <arsen@gentoo.org> wrote:

> "Eddie Chapman" <eddie@ehuk.net> writes:
> 
> > Not aiming this at you personally but this argument has been made
> > more than once in this thread and I personally don't think it
> > carries any weight, because it can be levelled at anyone who raises
> > an issue about anything. If you don't like it, then just go and
> > roll your own.  
> 
> ::gentoo is supposed to be a coherent set of packages provided by
> Gentoo developers, with a reasonable scope.  eudev no longer fits
> into the 'coherent' part of that definition, and there are zero
> advantages to it over systemd-utils[udev].
> 
> The _only_ difference between a sys-fs/eudev::eudev and
> sys-fs/eudev::gentoo package that would exist if the former were to be
> made into an overlay is that Gentoo developers would be responsible
> for the latter.  There are no Gentoo developers interested in being
> responsible for the latter (AFAIK), and there is no tangible benefit
> to the latter for any Gentoo developer to latch onto.
> 
> Seeing as there is at least half a dozen people seemingly interested
> in maintaining eudev, why not just form an overlay?  This way,
> virtual/{,lib}udev doesn't get polluted with implementations which
> don't fullfil the definition of a virtual provider in ::gentoo, nor
> with use-flag hacks, but users which wish to use eudev still have
> access to it, and upstream eudev gets half a dozen potential
> contributors, which are needed, _badly_.  At risk of repeating
> myself, I'd like to point out again that the only viable approach for
> eudev upstream to take is to re-fork systemd and find a viable way to
> stay up-to-date, while fixing up incompatibilities with musl.  I've
> made proposals a few years ago and restated them in this thread.

I just want to reiterate that the overlay suggestion is bad and the
LibreSSL overlay is a good example of why. The result is most of the
work is redoing things that ::gentoio has already done by copying
ebuild changes where actual changes for LibreSSL itself or for packages
not compatible with it is a vast minority of the work.

With eudev besides maintaining the eudev ebuild itself I suspect other
ebuilds the overlay would have to maintain separate copies of are:

virtual/libudev
virtual/udev (Why are there two of these?)
sys-kernel/genkernel (?)
sys-fs/udev-init-scripts
sys-fs/mdadm
net-wireless/bluez
sys-apps/systemd-utils

And possibly others I missed which have minor changes for eudev, its
significantly less work for ::gentoo to keep eudev than for a ::eudev
overlay to exist.

> 
> > Of course I know I (and anyone else) can do that. So then what's the
> > point of discussing anything then?  
> 
> Just because an argument is widely applicable does not make it
> invalid.
> 
> Note that this argument is seldom the first resort, since, as you
> note, it's not overly productive.  Indeed, it was not the first
> resort here. sys-fs/eudev has long overstayed the original removal
> plan.
> 
> > What's the point of having a big tree with hundreds of packages? Why
> > not have a very minimal tree instead and let everyone go and run
> > multiple independent repos so we can all do what we want? Then we
> > wouldn't have any discussion about what to include and what not. In
> > fact maybe that's not a bad idea.  
> 
> I'm not sure how to fit this within the context of the thread.
> 
> Have a lovely evening.