On 2006-02-25 23:16:36 -0600 (Sat, Feb), Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> > > So, it's based on the collective opinion of the gentoo developers?
> > > Wouldn't it be better to put that in the hands of the gentoo user?
> >
> > IMHO it already is. It's called PORTAGE_OVERLAY.
> 
> Again, hard to do automatically.  Wheras, if I could just set 
> ACCEPT_UPSTREAM="BETA" I'd get all the betas.  Or I could use 
> package.upstream and but in "kde-extra/kaffeine ALPHA" and get anything 
> assigned more than a snapshot number for that package.  (Instead of 
> manually checking after each sync to see if there's a new, masked 
> version.)

In 'man 5 ebuild' I see:

  Atom Versions
    It  is  nice  to be more specific and say that only certain versions of atoms
    are acceptable.  Note that versions must be combined with a prefix (see below).
    Hence you may add a version number as a postfix to the base:

    sys-apps/sed-4.0.5
    sys-libs/zlib-1.1.4-r1
    net-misc/dhcp-3.0_p2

    Versions  are normally made up of two or three numbers separated by periods,
    such as 1.2 or 4.5.2.  This string may be followed by a character such as 1.2a
    or 4.5.2z.  Note that this letter  is  not  meant  to indicate  alpha,  beta,
    etc...  status.   For that, use the optional suffix; either _alpha, _beta, _pre
    (pre-release), _rc (release candidate), or _p (patch).  This means for the 3rd
    pre-release of a package, you would use something like 1.2_pre3.

I suppose that you could prepare a script that builds your
/etc/portage files to unmask packages with _beta versions,
or with any other criteria contained in ebuild.

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