Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 2 policy for portage tree

[Graham Murray <graham@gmurray.org.uk>]

"Robert R. Russell" <nahoy_kbiki@hushmail.com> writes:

> 3)  perform the bugfix with a version bump and upgrade to the latest EAPI
> Options 1 and 2 are how most updates are done, the user can mask the latest 
> version or upgrade. Option 3 allows the user to continue using the previous 
> version while they decide to update to a portage version that supports the 
> new EAPI.
>
> I would prefer that option 3 be made policy because I run several ~arch 
> packages that either don't have a stable version (kradio) or have a feature 
> that I need (gentoo-sources), and will not be pushed to stable immediately 
> for various reasons from lack of maintainer time to everybody says it 
> conflicts with major pieces of the system (Firefox 3, 64 bit netscape-flash, 
> and xorg).

Another reason for preferring option 3 for bug fix (but not for
'cosmetic' changes or ones which prevent some users from installing the
package) is that (~arch) users will already have the pre-bug fixed
version installed and portage will not install the bug fix unless either
the version is bumped or USE flags have changed and the --newuse emerge
option is used.