Re: [gentoo-user] What happens with masked packages?

["Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.com>]

First of all, thanks for the reply and clarification.  It's always good to 
hear from an actual developer when I start ranting.  [I know I could 
always go pick a fight on gentoo-dev, but I'll reserve that for when I've 
got a justifiable beef, and not just a half-baked rant. ;)]

On Friday 24 February 2006 11:31, Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm@gentoo.org> 
wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] What happens with masked packages?':
> Top level package.mask means there's something wrong with the upstream
> package. Often this is because it's a beta release. It can also be used
> for major ebuild changes.

Okay, that's clearer, though I still wish "beta" was more cleanly separated 
from "broken" -- While betas generally are broken to some degree, they are 
purposely put out there so users will file the bugs upstream.

While I suppose the comments in package.mask do provide a method for 
determining when it's "safe" to unmask a beta, it's difficult to 
automatically handle betas.  Under my system you just set 
ACCEPT_UPSTREAM="BETA" and you get beta packages without the broken ones, 
automatically.

> ~arch means a package is a candidate for going into arch after further
> testing, if said testing does not turn up new bugs. This means that
> both the ebuild *and* the package should be likely to be stable.

So, betas shouldn't ever be ~arch?  Or is your definition of stable broad 
enough to include betas?

> -* means the package is in some way architecture or hardware
> independent (e.g. a binary only package), and so will only run on archs
> that are explicitly listed.

So, I guess glibc-2.3.6-r3.ebuild is using -* incorrectly?

> Any package setting KEYWORDS="-*" and nothing else is abusing -*, and
> will flag a warning on the QA checkers.

You mean like gcc-4.1.0_pre20060219.ebuild?

Sorry if I come off too critically [1].  I do see an unclean separation of 
upstream-stable vs. ebuild-stable in the portage system and I'd like to 
see it fixed, but everyday I appreciate how much work goes in to 
maintaining the portage tree and improving the gentoo experience.

-- 
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
bss03@volumehost.com
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy

[1] Also, sorry I'm just a squeaky wheel instead of actively trying to fix 
the problem, I know there are more constructive things to do (GLEP, 
experimental portage backages, etc.) besides rant on the user list.
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