From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MmmcE-0000rx-UQ for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:47:32 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B316AE089E; Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:47:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vms173009pub.verizon.net (vms173009pub.verizon.net [206.46.173.9]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E7D2E08B2 for ; Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:47:28 +0000 (UTC) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Received: from gw.thefreemanclan.net ([96.245.54.239]) by vms173009.mailsrvcs.net (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-7.04 (built Sep 26 2008; 32bit)) with ESMTPA id <0KPW00J5RON4XE28@vms173009.mailsrvcs.net> for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:47:28 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gw.thefreemanclan.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FB351759A92 for ; Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:47:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-id: <4AACCDBF.5020207@gentoo.org> Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:47:27 -0400 From: Richard Freeman User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090912) To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] DistroWatch and Gentoo packages: status quo and future References: <4AAAD714.1010107@hartwork.org> <4b0462b4d4cc0f26a7b45e6787d51890@localhost> In-reply-to: <4b0462b4d4cc0f26a7b45e6787d51890@localhost> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: 5bef2000-eee4-46b1-9d24-fbb3a8cf1ef4 X-Archives-Hash: 4dd279cecd83823049062100d5947061 Jes=C3=BAs Guerrero wrote: >=20 > Most Gentoo users will have no problem to use overlays as they need > them. If we had more developers we could as maintain more packages, > as simple as that. >=20 I actually tend to agree with this position, however to use overlays as=20 a valid solution for end-users we need to do more to support them.=20 Right now it is at least a little painful to get set up with an overlay.=20 There also isn't really any official place to vet overlays, and there=20 isn't any official source for overlays that aren't maintained by gentoo. Sure, overlays.g.o has tons of overlays - but which ones are=20 mostly-stable, and which ones are intended to break systems? What is=20 the QA policy for each overlay? If I'm an end-user not interested in=20 breaking my system, what overlays are safe for me to use? If we really want overlays to be an outlet to allow more non-devs to=20 contribute, then there needs to be some way to standardize them. Maybe=20 a simple ratings system - an overlay needs to comply with one set of=20 rules just to get listed on o.g.o. If you want to be marked as stable,=20 then you obey some additional rules. And so on... Then we can have overlays of various types for various purposes, and=20 users can pick which ones they want to follow. We could also have=20 things like overlay groups - like "stable" or "desktop" or "KDE" / etc. Maybe a fancy GUI to allow users to configure all of this. Of course, for this to work somebody needs to develop it. If somebody=20 were willing to do the work I doubt anybody would get in their way. It=20 isn't like any of this would interfere with anybody who just wanted to=20 make their own overlay without rules and not have it listed on some=20 official site.