Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting EAPI 5 *use.stable.mask to work in gx86?

[Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org>]

On 14 December 2012 14:29, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:38:24 +0000
> Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> On 13 December 2012 21:46, Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> > On 12/13/2012 12:43 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 21:33:50 +0100
>> >> "Andreas K. Huettel" <dilfridge@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Am Mittwoch, 12. Dezember 2012, 11:30:17 schrieb Zac Medico:
>> >>>>> Yes, and having 'stable' and 'unstable' profiles will work just
>> >>>>> the same. Except for the fact that it will be a bit cleaner, not require
>> >>>>> EAPI=5 at all and probably make arch testing a bit easier for a few
>> >>>>> people.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Sounds good to me.
>> >>>
>> >>> Except that it completely breaks stabilization procedures, since packages are
>> >>> then not only tested with a larger range of useflags, but with an entirely
>> >>> different profile. Not such a great idea.
>> >>>
>> >>> The whole point of the stable masking was to keep the changes minimal when
>> >>> going from a "testing" to a "stable" state - by only restricting the use flag
>> >>> choices, and nothing else. This means most of the testing done with ~arch
>> >>> packages is still valid and provides meaningful feedback to maintainers and
>> >>> arch teams for stabilization.
>> >>
>> >> Well, it's all a question of decisions, I believe. If we make sure that
>> >> the new 'unstable' profiles differ from the 'stable' ones only by
>> >> additional masked/unmasked USE flags, I don't think it'd be an issue.
>> >
>> > Yeah, should be fine.
>>
>> How are you engoing to ensure that? And how are you going to monitor
>> them so they will not get out-of-sync in future? We have plenty of
>> examples of stale profile entries
>> all over the profiles/arch directory so I think that the stable
>> *use.stable.mask will also end up
>> unmaintained in the near future.
>
> What is your solution then? Keeping two revisions of most ebuilds so
> that one could be stabilized? I don't see how that is more
> maintainable, except for a few days who will easily stay out of it
> and pretend that the issue doesn't exist.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny

By keeping multiple ebuilds around you are transfering the maintenance
responsibility to the invdividual developer/herd.
By adding the *use.stable.mask to each architecture, you are
transferring this responsibility to the arch maintainers.
We already have plenty of understaffed arches, I don't think it is
wise to throw more responsibilities to them. Unless of course all
developers are allowed to touch these *stable* profiles which
personally I don't like because arches will lose
control of their stable trees.

-- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2