On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:42:27 +0000
"Tony \"Chainsaw\" Vroon" <chainsaw@gentoo.org> wrote:

> In less than two weeks, on Tuesday January the 8th, the council will meet again. 
> Now is the time to prepare & raise items that you feel should be put to a vote.
> 
> Please reply to this e-mail with any suggested agenda items. Even if you have raised 
> the issue on a mailing list before, please repeat it now to avoid it being missed.

I'd like the Council to raise the topic of using stable USE masks
in gx86 tree.

The issue is that Python packages have USE-conditional (PYTHON_TARGETS)
dependencies upon new, unstable Python versions. Therefore,
if a particular package is to be stabilized, the relevant USE flags have
to be masked (or removed) in order to fulfill the dependencies
on a stable system.

Currently we're resolving this through using two revisions
for a package, one with the relevant flags removed (going stable)
and a newer one with all flags enabled. However, this is very
inconvenient for us.

EAPI 5 provides use.stable.mask files to solve this but those files
require profiles to be EAPI 5. Therefore, in order to be able to use it
we would have to actually break the update path for older portage
versions completely.

I have tried to raise the topic on the mailing list [1] but it mostly
resulted in some people agreeing that it is an issue that should be
addressed but no real ideas.

I have come up with three possible solutions myself. Long story short:

a) adding new profiles which will require EAPI=5 and requiring all
users to migrate to them after upgrading portage. Using new
use.stable.mask files in those profiles.

b) adding new profiles (with current EAPIs) and requesting our unstable
users to migrate to them. Masking the relevant USE flags globally
and unmasking in those profiles.

c) 'fixing' the use.stable.mask feature and wording it in such a way
that it would apply to EAPI 5 (or 6) packages independently of profiles
EAPI.

I have also opened bug 447090 [2] in order to try to get some feedback
on b) but nobody bothered to answer.

[1]:http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/81877
[2]:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447090

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny