Re: [gentoo-dev] overlay usage and maintainence [was: DistroWatch and Gentoo packages: status quo and future]

["Jesús Guerrero" <i92guboj@terra.es>]

On Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:57:48 +0200, Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>
wrote:
> 
> First issue: How do I find out in which overlay stuff is?

http://gentoo.zapto.org/

> Second issue: "I want foopackage and barpackage, but not your hacked
gcc"
> Overlays can overshadow tree packages, which can have undesired effects.

Smart overlays shouldn't do that (and if you are using ~arch then it's
*your* problem). No one forces you to get the full overlay though. You can
put the overlay out of the PORTDIR_OVERLAY, and then just symlink the
wanted
directories into your PORTDIR_OVERLAY, that way you will get the
facilities
of layman and the advantage or a greater control.


>>  With those two sets above removed, overlays would either contain
>>  breaking
>>  stuff (playground for devs) or not checked ebuilds from users. For
both
>>  sets, the above ussage with layman should be easy enough.
> Indeed. And everything else should go into the tree.
> Also, everyone contributing regularly to an overlay (like X-Drum, who
has
> done 
> an awesome job at maintaining Virtualbox) should sooner or later be
> recruited 
> to work on the Big Overlay instead.
> 
> Which points at another problem - our recruiting isn't as active as it
> should 
> be. Maybe we should have the Sith rule of gentoo dev'ing ... "Always two
> there 
> are, a master and an apprentice". It should be every dev's goal to have
at 
> least one recruit at most times :)
> 
> Or for those of you too lazy for that - do whatever you can to recruit
> your 
> replacement. Once you've managed that you can be as lazy as you want!

Yep. All comes down to the same, lack of man power I think.
-- 
Jesús Guerrero