[gentoo-dev] Sandboxes

[Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>]

To hijack the overlay thread, I see a few things here:

MOTIVATION:

a) Developers don't like putting experimental stuff in the tree: This is
usually because Joe Ricer picks up the ebuild, 'tests' it, it breaks and
he files a bug.  Joe Ricer has no clue what went wrong or what he is
doing and said Developer gets annoyed as hell by Joe Ricer's lack of
knowledge/co-operation with regards to bug report.  For more popular
packages, multiply Joe Ricer by some random two digit number.

b) Developers want users to contribute too: Users don't have commit
access to the main tree (for good reason, as stated in the other
thread).  However developers would like users to be able to contribute
in some meaningful way to a project/package without the red tape that is
bugzilla.

PROPOSAL:

a) overlays.gentoo.org -> A sub-domain for hosting overlays or
'development sandboxes'.  Developers want an area for sandboxed
development of packages outside of the main tree.  As stated in the
previous thread this allows faster developer with less overread (QA,
changelogs, etc..).  These sandboxed areas also allow non-developers to
contribute to projects in a useful manner.

b) overlays.gentoo.org -> Is not meant for public consumption by users.
 overlays.gentoo.org is merely a development aid and not meant for
public consumption.  Users tend to not know how overlays are
implemented.  Multiple activated overlays also can cause hard to debug
issues as overlays over-ride ebuilds and eclass in each other and the
tree itself.

c) Overlays may be secured on an per-overlay basis to prevent normal
users from both reading and writing to the overlay.  For example a
project may wish to have an overlay and invite two or three
non-developers to contribute.  This makes creating small development
units easy, while keeping QA the main tree relatively high.

This is what I see, and this is kinda what I would want.  As an overlay
"creator" I should be able to add/remove accounts from my own overlay (
to reduce the load on the overlay project/infra ).  In essence, creating
a bunch of small communities for development.

Thoughts on ideas on this somewhat more focussed idea? ( or at least I
think it's more focused :P )

-Alec Warner
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