Re: [gentoo-dev] overlay usage and maintainence [was: DistroWatch and Gentoo packages: status quo and future]

[Thomas Sachau <tommy@gentoo.org>]

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Richard Freeman schrieb:
> Jesús Guerrero wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
> 
> I actually tend to agree with this position, however to use overlays as
> a valid solution for end-users we need to do more to support them. Right
> now it is at least a little painful to get set up with an overlay.

I dont see any problem with "emerge layman; layman -L; layman -a <your preferred overlay>"

> Sure, overlays.g.o has tons of overlays - but which ones are
> mostly-stable, and which ones are intended to break systems?  What is
> the QA policy for each overlay?  If I'm an end-user not interested in
> breaking my system, what overlays are safe for me to use?

If developers create safe-to-use overlays, then i think, there is something wrong. Those ebuilds
shouldnt be hidden in any overlay, but instead be added and maintained in the main tree.

> If we really want overlays to be an outlet to allow more non-devs to
> contribute, then there needs to be some way to standardize them.  Maybe
> a simple ratings system - an overlay needs to comply with one set of
> rules just to get listed on o.g.o.  If you want to be marked as stable,
> then you obey some additional rules.  And so on...

If you want to use overlays to allow users to contribute and want to check the rules, you need devs,
who at least do basic QA checks on the overlay and all ebuilds. If this is done anyway, those devs
could also be proxy-maintainers. So those ebuilds, which comply to a set of rules could also go into
the main tree.

> 
> Then we can have overlays of various types for various purposes, and
> users can pick which ones they want to follow.  We could also have
> 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
> were willing to do the work I doubt anybody would get in their way.  It
> isn't like any of this would interfere with anybody who just wanted to
> make their own overlay without rules and not have it listed on some
> official site.

I think, this is the wrong direction. Instead of moving more and more things into overlays, we
should keep as much as possible in our main tree. With those two sets above removed, overlays would
either contain breaking stuff (playground for devs) or not checked ebuilds from users. For both
sets, the above ussage with layman should be easy enough.


-- 
Thomas Sachau

Gentoo Linux Developer


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