Re: [gentoo-user] gimp-9999 failed to compile

["Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto" <please.no.spam.here@gmail.com>]

> On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 12:21 +0700, Nickolay Hodyunya wrote:
>> Yes, but it seems 0.0.21 is not even released, because there is no
>> files to fetch
>> from ftp.gimp.org for this version.
>
> Well, sometimes that happens when you build from trunk (and why it's
> usually discouraged).

That is not the only reason it is usually discouraged... the main
reason is that the code itself is often broken.
By the way, there is a contradiction among a subset of the Gentoo
users. They spend a lot of time optimizing their system
(sometimes even being irresponsible, using absurd CFLAGS), but at the
same time they install the very latest software, while 95% of software
gets slower with each release. Using the most recent, untested
software often leads to bugs and very often leads to decreased
performance.
What a rational person would do (in my opinion) is
1) A generally stable (no ~arch) system.
2) A few ~arch packages, where the ~arch versions really have important
features, and they outweigh the unreliability. One example would be
multimedia software, and perhaps Firefox (3.0 is still ~x86).
3) Zero or very few hardmasked or unkeyworded packages, including cvs
software. They are hardmasked for a reason.

Of course, some people do have a rational reason to download software
from cvs, such as developers of that particular software.
--
Software is like sex: it is better when it is free - Linus Torvalds