[gentoo-user] Quo vadis Gentoo [WAS: Daniel Robbins' come back ?]

[Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de>]

* James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

Hi,

> 4. Formalize a process where others (non devs) can build, store and 
> maintain ebuilds that are not blessed by the devs, so individuals
> can easily share their work with the larger Gentoo community.

Isn't this what several overlay projects (eg. Sunrise) are meant for ?
IMHO, Sunrise suffers from it's size - lot's of smaller overlays 
could be the way to go. Maybe differenciate between bleeding-edge
and production overlays ?

AFAIK, the current overlay technique could be improved to make
using *dozens* of overlays much easier. Some points I'm missing:
per-overlay masking direct overlay selection when emerging.

I'm using several overlays and I'd like to have exact control
where specific ebuilds come from on updates. For example I have
to change a few ebuilds from the main tree and take care that
nothing get mixed up - updates from the main tree should not 
override older versions from my overlay, but I need to be 
informed about them.

> If one choses such and ebuild there on their own. The gentoo devs 
> should develop a semantic where folks not officially part of the 
> devs can maintain a package or two, rather than making ebuilds for 
> obsolescence, unilaterally.

Maybe a combination of overlays and proxy maintenance ?

> 6. Provide resources to the gentoo-embedded group to assist them
> in their efforts to assimilate embedded-gentoo into gentoo
> so that lots of ordinary users can build and experiment with
> embedded gentoo. 

Actually, as an embedded guy, I don't think that Gentoo (with it's
current models) is really suitable for embedded systems (-> small 
devices, exotic platforms, ...). The concepts are fundamental 
opposite. For example, if you're not always crosscompiling within
sysroot, you're seriously wrong for embedded systems ;-P

I really doubt that it's really worth trying to make (current)
Gentoo suitable for embedded systems, as major concepts are 
opposite and it would cause us big headache. 

BUT: I really think that an major distro like Gentoo should 
cooperate with embedded folks in an meta project like OSS-QM.
For example, most of the collected patches could be a bit more
generalized and then go to OSS-QM, while Gentoo could get it's
directly from there.


cu
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