Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's future directtion ?

[hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org>]

James:
> hasufell <hasufell <at> gentoo.org> writes:
> 
> 
>> I still don't see a good argument why we made our system so inflexible,
>> that obviously needed change needs such high amount of work, PR and proof.
> 
> I think that most folks appreciate your efforts and insightful ideas
> on how to open up development, particularly in non-critical (non-core)
> areas. The quesiton is how do we get from where we are to where we
> want to be. I find most of what I'm interested in already in Arch Linux. I
> wonder why it is so much easier for Arch users to create pkgbuilds (like
> gentoo's ebuilds) and find a dev to adopt the package? Surely someone has 
> some insight on this differences, or do I miss something that creats the
> difference? [1]  I also find the Arch documentation to be of the finest
> quality of any and all linux distros, close to gentoo. ymmv.
> 
> 

Arch has done it wrong, IMO. Sure, their PKGBUILDs are easier to write,
but their quality is also worse. I know how to write them and have
written and looked at a lot of them.

People went the easy way and didn't really care much about review
workflow, so they ended up with AUR where everyone can upload random
stuff, including dangerous and wrong code.

>> Trying to improve a tiny fraction about gentoo workflow (including your
>> attempts) already took more than 4(?) years with never ending excuses.
>> The necessity was more than obvious.
>> Now I could talk about similarly obvious things. Sure, not all issues
>> are obvious and those shouldn't be easy to push through.
> 
> 
> Everyone understands small changes and all changes take time for the
> majority of members to digest, imho. Not everyone has your keen insight into
>  the problem/opportunity. So your patience in explanation, encouragement and
> solicitation, is very important, if your idea is to be
> implemented and tested. Naturally, Rich and other deeply involved devs, with
> addtional responsibilities exude caution, to keep the gentoo stable.
> They will not be the source of "team building" for your idea, imho.
> 

Gentoo isn't even particularly stable anymore. It's a mess to maintain
with a confused PM, toolchain hackery and random conflicting ideas in
one repository (e.g. multilib clashing with crossdev).

The distro can only be as stable as the PM and the PM depends on the
input. The input depends on quality ebuilds. Quality ebuilds depend on a
proper spec, but there is no proper spec... PMS team itself says it
started as a collection of ancient portage behavior and then grew with
time, so there was no real design behind it. Quality ebuilds also depend
on review-workflow. Review-workflow needs proper tools.

We don't even have the last one. Long way to go. Good luck.


 >> You can draw your conclusions about this. I drew mine: small changes
>> will not get us out of here.
> 
> 
> I think the jury is still out. So, why can't we test a transient plan
> where we take something very broken areas at Gentoo (games or java or
> sys-cluster) and test out your hypothesis for package development expansion?
> 

Already doing so
https://github.com/hasufell/games-overlay

and that's where I will update ebuilds, not in the tree. And I don't
care to get any of that into the tree.

> In fact, I've been looking over quite a few ebuilds and pkgbuilds at (Arch
> linux). [2] I see quite a lot of commonality. So, why can we not "modify"
> this aforementioned "inflexible" system on gentoo to allow for Arch Linux
> pkgbuilds to be routinely compiled and installed on gentoo?
> 
> Maybe limit the test to /usr/local/portage or /usr/local/portage/test/ so
> folks can participate or purge the experiment? Maybe find some Arch linux
> devs keen on the idea of developing/evolving package management so that 
> the two distros can readiy (or more easily) convert packages between
> Arch and Gentoo?   Is it possible?  Could your plan be modified to
> include a variety of Arch developers? Surely you have a collection
> of devs ready to implement your keen ideas? I, for one realize something
> fundamental has to change with Gentoo, after pushing a few months
> on java and cluster codes.... Also, there is a vast array of software,
> of various quality, among the overlay repositories to use as test-packages?
> 
> 
> The biggest thing I seen wrong with Arch is they have forced systemd
> onto their users, and all of the arch users I know, are not very
> happy about that. So if you approach this correctly, I'm sure quite a
> few Arch linux folks would also test your offerings.
> 
>> Have fun, if you can.
> 
> 
> Always we should have fun. That is why we should deeply discuss these
> issues to find common ground. Maybe fixing this inflexible system should
> involve a survey of those distros closest to gentoo, for ideas, particulary
> several (structured) methods to install packages, provide choices for the
> init system, and strongly advocate package development within the
> ranks of the user base. Clear and concise documentation, concurrent with
> this effort is probably your single greatest alley, should your idea
> and leadership prove successful.
> 
> 

People are scared of other gentoo-like distros/PMs. Exherbo is evil,
paludis is evil, sabayoon is evil, ...

I've already tried contributing to exherbo. They are technically ahead
of us in some non-trivial areas, but I don't think they have solved the
contribution problem. Sure, they are more distributed and have gerrit
etc, but their review workflow goes more the way "make a high-quality
user-overlay and then we will review it once and add it to our page".

They don't care too much about themed and clearly scoped overlays and
about the difference of 'modular' and 'fragmented'.

200 guys pushing into 200 repositories without _regular_ reviews (not
just a "gentoo dev" or "high quality" overlay badge) is not much
different to what gentoo does.

Arch is neither interesting from the technical nor from the workflow
standpoint, IMO.