Re: [gentoo-user] Masking for Educational Purposes only ?

["Arttu V." <arttuv69@gmail.com>]

On 11/24/08, b.n. <brullonulla@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, why? If you want to test 2.2 instead, you can do it. It's not
> blocking you from anything.

Yes, before the change the only thing blocking portage 2.2 was ~arch.
Now it requires the bigger tool, Thor's Hammer of Unmasking +5 (+15
against portage devs and other undead? ;) ).

> He wants users to test *more* a given version, and that in turn will
> probably benefit us all. It's a psychological trick, maybe, but an
> absolutely innocent one. In fact, once you know that, you *should* jump
> the bandwagon and help test the previous version.

Let's think for a moment about the logic and psychology underlying
this situation.

Why have these people upgraded to unstable portage 2.2 in the first
place? Just to "test it out"? To show off ricing to the debian and
ubuntu kids running their ancient stable stuff? No, it's the package
manager for crying out loud! My guess is that most have packages
explicitly requiring them to run the newer portage, packages like
anything related to kde4.

Will such people help with testing of 2.1 on their normal system? No.
So how many new testers did this actually acquire? And how much work
was wasted unmasking the packages and ranting on mailing lists?

My guess is zero new testers and a lot of time wasted with hundreds or
thousands of people whipping out their text editors and unmasking the
package, then going off ranting on mailing lists, forums and irc
channels.

So, yes, I'd tend to agree with Mr McKinnon and Mr Jarausch on this
issue. Something was bad in this execution of this "need more testers"
-- regardless of the possible original good intentions.

/semi-serious-rant

-- 
Arttu V.