Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo <--> Sabayon Relation

[Aniruddha <mailing_list@orange.nl>]

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Sabayon is considered 'close' to Gentoo, but not necessarily 'very
close' (atleast in my view). The reason for this is because Sabayon uses
its own versions of some pretty major packages (browsing through their
overlay, I see packages like grub, xorg-x11 and xorg-server to name just
a few). 

The problem is not that we (the Gentoo community) don't want to provide
official support, it's that we can't (beyond a certain point). Sabayon
provides its own version of many packages and these seem to (sometimes)
lag behind the official Gentoo tree. A case in example: The other day
someone came into #gentoo complaining that nvidia-drivers wouldn't
install with glibc-2.6. Glibc-2.6 no longer includes the nptl and
nptl-only USE flags, but the Sabayon package was still looking for them.
There's nothing the Gentoo developers can do about this - it would
require commit access to Sabayon's overlay. There's nothing much most
users can do about this - The only suggestion I could make was "ask in
#sabayon or use the package from the official tree". 

This is a simple, obvious example of a change that caused problems.
There could easily be many much more subtle problems that break systems
in a much more subtle way. Most people in #gentoo will happily provide
support for Sabayon users, but if it becomes suspect that the problem
lies in using Sabayons packages, then there's frankly nothing we can do
as we don't know how Sabayon's packages differ, with most of us being
Gentoo users, not Sabayon users. 

As for providing official support on Bugzilla, a Sabayon users first
point of call must be the Sabayon developers (via their Bugzilla). If
the Sabayon developers then determine that the problem lies in Gentoo's
tree, they should report it to the Gentoo developers (via Gentoo's
Bugzilla). This is the same way things work with Gentoo vs upstream.
Users report bugs on Gentoo's Bugzilla, if the developers determine that
the problem lies with the program itself, the problem will then be
reported to the packages developers (AKA upstream). There's a hierarchy
of responsability here, the model of which is generally followed
throughout the open source world. (To take the hierarchy further, the
packages developers may determine that the problem lies with a library
that they use, in which case they may report the bug to the library's
developers (further upstream)). 

There are two seperate questions here, with seperate answers: 
1) Can Gentoo's developers provide official support for Sabayon. The
answer is no - Sabayon users should report problems to Sabayon's
developers, who will then report the problem upstream if necessary. 
2) Can Gentoo's community provide unofficial support for Sabayon. The
answer is yes - up until the problem is determined to be (possibly)
Sabayon specific - and it does. 

To translate this on to the Debian vs Ubuntu example: If an Ubuntu user
asks for help in #debian, they'll get it, but if the Debian community
determines the problem is possibly Ubuntu specific, they'll tell the
user to go back to the Ubuntu community as there's nothing they can do.
If an Ubuntu user reports a problem to Debians bugzilla, the Debian devs
will tell them to go talk to the Ubuntu devs because there's nothing
they can do - they have no influence over the Ubuntu packages. 

Beso: 
Gentoo doesn't have kicker, an essential part of KDE in it's repository.
Right... This is exactly the problem... it does, and the differences may
cause bugs that manifest themselves outside of Kicker in subtle ways.
The Gentoo developers have looked at the differences between the
repositories, and they aren't closed minded, but they haven't got the
time to run through every problem from Sabayon users to determine
themselves if it's a problem with Gentoo or Sabayon. There is a chain of
responsability here and for Sabayon users it starts with the Sabayon
developers, just as with Ubuntu users it starts with the Ubuntu
developers. 

In summary: 

        
        
      * Sabayon is NOT Gentoo. Sabayon is CLOSE TO Gentoo. 
      * The Gentoo community does provide unofficial support for Sabayon
        users. 
      * Sabayon users should report problems to Sabayons developers, who
        will then report the problem upstream (which may or may not be
        the Gentoo developers) if necessary. 
      * If it's a Sabayon specific problem, then only people who know
        Sabayon (ie. the Sabayon community) are going to be able to help
        solve it. 



http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-541789-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-sabayon-start-100.html



On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 21:22 -0700, René 'Necoro' Neumann wrote:

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> Hey guys,
> 
> I'd like to discuss a topic that I know much people will use for
> trolling/flaming or similar. If you feel like this - get you a weapon
> and cool down, but please do not answer :)
> 
> I start this discussion as I'm inspired by some posts at drobbin's blog.
> 
> The first thing:
> What is the actual (official) attitude towards Sabayon?
> 
> If it is as I think it is (negative) - why is it like this? Why isn't
> Sabayon treated as an official "child project"? Why is support denied
> for Sabayon Users? - I know that they have a global ~$ARCH and some
> not-so-nice hacks ;), but this shouldn't be a reason, as problems
> related to this shouldn't be the major part...
> 
> I want just to propose, that the devs should be more open for Sabayon -
> and see it as a source of ideas and software. If lxnay will finish
> Entropy (and it helds what it is supposed ;)) - it will add a feature
> that is often asked for and always declined as "not possible". (And
> there may be other stuff ...)
> 
> 
> Hmm ... I had several other thoughts but forgot them during the day :/.
> So again: Only serious, constructive answers :)
> 
> - -- Nec
> 
> P.S.: Nope - I'm not a Sabayon User :)
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