Re: [gentoo-dev] Repository stacking and complementary overlays

[Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org>]

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Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> This seems desirable and reasonable.
> As I replied to this subject earlier regarding KDE, let me complement
> that information. In the case of the KDE team, we keep work on a release
> all in the same place, so we don't need to unmask some KDE packages in
> tree for those using the overlay. However, we some times have deps on
> packages from other teams and or in other overlays, so I hope the repo
> deps would help here (not to unmask those packages, if they're masked,
> but to add a dep on a particular repo and allowing the PM explain to the
> user that he/she needs to unmask a particular version in the tree /
> overlay).

The problem with repo deps is that they're too restrictive since
they assume that only a specific repo can satisfy the dep. Suppose
that you migrate some of the packages from the overlay to the main
tree? Now you've got installed packages that are trying to pull in
deps from the wrong repo. Or suppose that somebody else has an
overlay with a compatible package?

I think a better way to reference another repo is with the
layout.conf approach suggested in the "QA Overlay Layout support"
thread [1]. For example, if packages from the java-experimental repo
depend on some ebuilds or eclasses from the java-overlay repo, it's
specified via a "masters" entry in layout.conf. If any of those
ebuilds/eclasses happen to migrate to the main tree then the
migration is seamless.

[1]
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_33c61550b4ed2b7b25dd5a4110e1ec81.xml
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Thanks,
Zac
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