[gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Yuri Gagarin]

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I have a small office Linux deployment coming up and I'd very much like to
base it on the upcoming Gentoo 2007.0 snapshot for consistency and
stability, but for that to be feasible I'd need to follow the progress of
the snapshot to see what issues remain and determine if it'll be released in
time. The snapshot's tracking bug on Bugzilla (#156814) is restricted
however, and even with an account I still don't have permission to access
it. Why is the bug restricted?

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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Andrew Gaffney]

Yuri Gagarin wrote:
> I have a small office Linux deployment coming up and I'd very much like 
> to base it on the upcoming Gentoo 2007.0 snapshot for consistency and 
> stability, but for that to be feasible I'd need to follow the progress 
> of the snapshot to see what issues remain and determine if it'll be 
> released in time. The snapshot's tracking bug on Bugzilla (#156814) is 
> restricted however, and even with an account I still don't have 
> permission to access it. Why is the bug restricted?

Because of...eager users that were adding their own bugs as blockers to the 
snapshot. The tracker bug is for developer use only.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer                                   Installer Project
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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Yuri Gagarin]

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On 3/16/07, Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> The tracker bug is for developer use only.
>

Understandable, but isn't there some way to make it read-only for the
masses? Lack of information may force me to go with another distro here.

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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 10:12 -0500, Yuri Gagarin wrote:
> On 3/16/07, Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@gentoo.org> wrote:
>         The tracker bug is for developer use only.
> 
> Understandable, but isn't there some way to make it read-only for the
> masses? Lack of information may force me to go with another distro
> here.

No, there is not a way to make it read-only.

The 2007.0 snapshot is what we build the release against.  It has
nothing to do with your installing a system or not, as you will want to
update your system after installation *anyway* so using a 2006.1 CD and
running an "emerge --sync" and updating world afterwards will give you
the exact same results.

If this is really something that would cause you to go to another
distribution over, there's not much that we can do about it and it is
likely that you might not be happy with Gentoo, anyway.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Yuri Gagarin]

On 3/16/07, Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> The 2007.0 snapshot is what we build the release against.  It has
> nothing to do with your installing a system or not, as you will want to
> update your system after installation *anyway* so using a 2006.1 CD and
> running an "emerge --sync" and updating world afterwards will give you
> the exact same results.

Aren't Gentoo releases, such as 2007.0, a "gold seal" so to speak,
denoting increased stability and QA scrutiny when compared with any
randomly chosen Gentoo snapshot? This is the assumption behind my
desire to base my deployment on the 2007.0 release, and it appears to
be supported by the following claim on Release Engineering's project
page:

"This project is very much focused on ensuring that the initial
quality of every official release is as high as possible, and that the
"from CD" experience is as positive for as many of our users as
possible."

I could, as you suggest, forgo the waiting and deploy right now using
2006.1 + sync + update world, but it seems to me that would result in
installations that have the least possible assurances on stability and
quality, given that the number of changes made to Gentoo since the
last release-quality mark, 2006.1, is near its peak. (In other words,
the further from a release in terms of changes made, the less
meaningful is the "gold seal" signified by that release.) Furthermore,
because any issues currently holding back the 2007.0 "gold seal" are
hidden from users by the restricted release tracker bug, I have no way
to make an informed decision of whether or not to take my chances.

> If this is really something that would cause you to go to another
> distribution over, there's not much that we can do about it and it is
> likely that you might not be happy with Gentoo, anyway.

I've been administering Gentoo systems happily for several years.
Please don't dismiss my expectations; I believe they're reasonable
given Release Engineering's stated goals.
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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 12:58 -0500, Yuri Gagarin wrote:
> Aren't Gentoo releases, such as 2007.0, a "gold seal" so to speak,
> denoting increased stability and QA scrutiny when compared with any
> randomly chosen Gentoo snapshot? This is the assumption behind my
> desire to base my deployment on the 2007.0 release, and it appears to
> be supported by the following claim on Release Engineering's project
> page:

Uhh... no.  Gentoo releases are media refreshes, and nothing more.

All it means is that the packages that we build are tested to build and
work together in the default configuration.

> meaningful is the "gold seal" signified by that release.) Furthermore,
> because any issues currently holding back the 2007.0 "gold seal" are
> hidden from users by the restricted release tracker bug, I have no way
> to make an informed decision of whether or not to take my chances.

It doesn't matter.  More than 90% of the things needed aren't even
tracked on the tracker.  We simply don't bother filing bugs for things
we already know about or things that are internal to our build process.
Again, having access to the tracker really won't gain you anything,
especially considering the snapshot was taken some time ago.

> > If this is really something that would cause you to go to another
> > distribution over, there's not much that we can do about it and it is
> > likely that you might not be happy with Gentoo, anyway.
> 
> I've been administering Gentoo systems happily for several years.
> Please don't dismiss my expectations; I believe they're reasonable
> given Release Engineering's stated goals.

I believe your idea of what goes on in Release Engineering is quite
flawed.  Again, we only test the packages that we ship on the GRP/LiveCD
and only in the default configuration.  Anything beyond that is
completely up to the maintainers, just as if you had done a normal sync.
Release Engineering is concerned with the quality of the media itself,
not of the tree as a whole.

What do you gain by waiting for a release/release snapshot?

- Knowing that GNOME/KDE/XFCE/etc build/run with default USE
- Knowing the stages build from stage1 with the default USE

That's really all you gain.  We make absolutely no assurances to the
quality of any packages beyond default USE, or beyond the shipped
package list.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Yuri Gagarin]

On 3/16/07, Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> All it means is that the packages that we build are tested to build and
> work together in the default configuration.

[snip]

> What do you gain by waiting for a release/release snapshot?
>
> - Knowing that GNOME/KDE/XFCE/etc build/run with default USE
> - Knowing the stages build from stage1 with the default USE
>
> That's really all you gain.  We make absolutely no assurances to the
> quality of any packages beyond default USE, or beyond the shipped
> package list.

I see, that's substantially less assurances than I believed the
releases provided.

It still seems like it could be a slight advantage over other
deployment options for my purposes however. I'll most likely be using
default settings for the base installations -- bare minimal will
suffice until I get around to customization (and potential borkage) of
individual machines.

Thanks for clarifying on the tracker issue. That just leaves me with
one question: Are you able to give us a more fine-grained ETA than
"March" for the 2007.0 release yet?
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Re: [gentoo-releng] 2007.0 snapshot tracker restricted?

[Andrew Gaffney]

Yuri Gagarin wrote:
> Thanks for clarifying on the tracker issue. That just leaves me with
> one question: Are you able to give us a more fine-grained ETA than
> "March" for the 2007.0 release yet?

No. It will be released when it's ready. We don't give release dates, because as 
soon as we do, something will happen to push the date back, and there will be a 
never-ending stream of users (and devs) bitching at us that the release isn't 
out yet. It's happened before.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer                                   Installer Project
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