Corey Shields <cshields@gentoo.org> writes:

> [snip]

> The reason for this is because with the current tree, old versions would be 
> removed too soon.  Yet we don't want a larger tree for our general user base, 
> so having a seperate tree is the current solution.  It would be identical to 
> the current tree with regards to new packages, but older packages would not 
> be deleted 3 months after they have become outdated, per se.  This is the 
> whole idea behind a stable tree.  If I can go a year without needing to 
> update gcc on a production server, then I don't want to have to update it.  
> Yet if the version I am running is pulled out of the tree, that may cause 
> problems for new installs.

This issue is really an issue with our use of CVS and Rsync -- ideally,
we would have some distribution system that `knows' about the Gentoo
package version structure; old package versions shouldn't ever be
`deleted' such that they are inaccessible through the normal
distribution mechanism, but we don't want an ever growing portage tree
size that must sit on users' and developers' machines.  However, it is
probably not feasible to write custom software for version control and
distribution of the portage tree.

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard