On 12/9/12 1:17 PM, Brian Dolbec wrote:
> Starting from a question by Markos in #gentoo-portage about whether to
> remove entries in profiles/updates for tree-cleaned packages...

What's the advantage of doing that?

> I propose that we say, once a year, schedule a tree-cleaning of old
> updates files.  These updates files could be added to a tarball made
> available for download.  That way if they are needed to update a system
> older than what the main tree has been tree-cleaned to. They can then be
> manually downloaded, extracted to the normal location and then run the
> "fixpackages" command.

I think that complicates the process. :-/ But maybe the advantages
outweigh that.

> The main question here is what is a reasonable length of time to keep
> the updates actively in-tree?
> 
>  -- From my experience in the forums, I think any updates older than 
>     4 years should be subject to tree-cleaning.  

Yeah, 4 years is ancient and would probably be non-trivial to update anyway.

>  -- Most old systems that have been updated tend to be less than that,
>     probably about 2 years.

2 years seem reasonable.