Re: [gentoo-dev] taking a break from arches stabilization

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 3:09 PM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> For what it's worth, Jack Morgan was recently getting his sparc and
> ia64 systems back up, but then decided to retire instead when he saw
> all of the discussions about dropping the architectures he cares
> about.
>

Honestly, I don't really get this sort of thing.  The reason arches
get dropped is because they mark things stable that they can't keep up
with.  If an arch never marked a package as stable nobody would be
bothered.  If they only marked a few critical packages as stable and
then kept up with them, again nobody would be bothered.  The conflict
comes in when an arch team marks packages as stable, but then doesn't
keep up with them.

Marking a package as stable is a two-way commitment.  When an arch
team marks a package as stable they make a promise to the maintainer
to stabilize updates in a timely manner.  In return the maintainer
promises to keep older versions around to suit the needs of the arch
team for the short time it takes to do these stabilizations.

When an arch team stabilizes something that they don't have time to
maintain then they're making a promise they can't keep, and the deal
breaks down.  Eventually the maintainers complain, and the council
ends up revoking the right of the arch team to hold the maintainers to
their side of the deal which has already been broken.

There are no bad guys here.  There is just a certain amount of work it
takes to make a stable arch viable, and it either happens or it
doesn't.  Most people who use Gentoo are tinkerers by nature.  All
things being equal we'd love to see every arch supported.  However,
this requires discipline on the part of the arch team, because
otherwise an arch that few people use starts impacting work for other
arches that many more use as maintainers get buried in old bugs.

-- 
Rich