On Mon, 5 Aug 2019 09:17:17 -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:

> > I've not checked lately, but policy was that if an ebuild change did
> > not result in differences in the installed files, there was no need
> > for a version bump. This avoids needless recompiling of packages.
> >   
> 
> Realistically, almost all ebuild changes should incur a new revision. I
> would much rather recompile 100 packages *and have it work* than compile
> 10 packages and have it crash three times requiring manual intervention
> because the tree is so screwed up.
> 
> We have better guidelines these days:
> 
> https://devmanual.gentoo.org/general-concepts/ebuild-revisions
> 
> but they still give developers too much freedom to be lazy and commit
> important changes without a revision. The "straight to stable" advice
> contradicts our existing stabilization policy, and the USE flag advice
> says that you can rely on a non-default, portage-only feature to prevent
> breakage.

That's pretty much how I remember it. If the existing version crash, then
the binaries have changed so it should be bumped, but if a dev missed out
a new DEPEND for chromium of libreoffice that I happen to have already
installed, I don't want to have to waste hours of CPU time recompiling to
exactly the same end point.

The most important statement in the policy is also the hardest to enforce
"Developers are encouraged to use common sense" :-O


-- 
Neil Bothwick

What is a "free" gift ? Aren't all gifts free?