Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: RFC: Make 10.0 profiles EAPI-2 'compliant'

[AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk>]

Robert Buchholz wrote:
> On Saturday 22 August 2009, Maciej Mrozowski wrote:
>> It's true, but being able to modularize profile may outweights the
>> need to be strict-with-the-book here - it's a matter of usefulness. I
>> think it should be decided by those who actually do the work in
>> profile, whether it's worthy to push this now instead of waiting for
>> EAPI approval.
>>
>> So, can profile developers share their view?
> 
> We have kept SLOT dependencies and other >EAPI-0 features out of the 
> tree profiles, introduced profile EAPI versioning to foster 
> interoperability. Now what you propose is to break this deliberate 
> upgrade process to introduce a feature no one proposed for the profiles 
> directory in the last years?
> 
> I wonder what the value of the PMS specification is if every time an 
> inconsistency comes up the argument is raised that it should document 
> portage behavior. EAPI 1, 2 and 3 have been agreed by the council and 
> PMS is in a stage where Portage should obey its definitions and not the 
> other way around.
> I am not saying that this is the *fastest* way to innovate (although in 
> my opinion it is a good way to keep interoperability).
> However this PMS process is what council has chosen for Gentoo, and 
> either you follow it, or you try to improve it (working with the PMS 
> subproject people), or you bring up a proposal to redefine how we 
> handle standards within the tree.
> 
> Trying to ignore the fact this standard exists is a way to breakage.
> 
> 
> Robert

From what I've seen here, at least part of the problem here stems from
the fact that this feature won't be considered until EAPI-4, and that
means it might be a long way off yet. This, in my mind, raises the
question of whether the current PMS/EAPI process is too slow in certain
circumstances and could it be modified to speed things up when deemed
necessary?

Could there be room for "fast track" EAPI's to be considered on some
occasions - eg. in this case an EAPI-2.1 which is simply EAPI-2 with the
"package.* as directory in profiles" feature included?

If this is a matter of what the council has decided, would a simple
solution be to have a motion for amendment / fast-track of EAPI2.1 (or
alternative solution) brought up and voted on by the council?

AllenJB