Re: [gentoo-dev] have portage be quiet by default

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Thomas Sachau <tommy@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 1. Who defines, what the default should be and when it is acceptable to force an unknown amount of
> users to change their settings?

Well, this did go on a mailing list, and so far we have all of 13
unique participants, so this seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot
considering that the change is trivial to undo.

I'll admit that it is pretty subjective either way, and that is just
more of a reason not to turn it into a huge controversy.  Users who
would be most sensitive to changes won't even see this until it hits
stable (if you don't like change, you shouldn't be running ~arch).

This is actually the sort of thing that might make for a good news
item (hey, we have a new setting and if you don't like it just do
this...).

Ultimately I think that it is up to the team maintaining a particular
component of the distro to make initial determinations of how that
component should behave, of course consulting with the list about
things likely to be of wide interest is always good but this was done
in this case.

If people want to appeal there is always making an appeal to the team
lead, and then to the Council.    There should be no reprimands or
stigma associated with having a decision reversed by the Council -
people shouldn't have to second-guess minor decisions like this.

I don't think it serves Gentoo to call for a vote (council, devs, or
otherwise) every time somebody wants to change the portage defaults,
especially regarding matters that are cosmetic.

Rich