[gentoo-user] Re: openssl upgrade may miss some needed rebuilds

[James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com>]

Rich Freeman <rich0 <at> gentoo.org> writes:


> >> They changed ABI without changing SONAME, which is an absolutely
> >> braid-dead thing for upstream to do, because it causes exactly this
> >> kind of breakage.
> >
> > Hmmmm. I've been working on my ebuild and end-o-mentoring quizes:: so in
> > that vein, should not the gentoo dev have bumped the gentoo rev  
> > numbers, or did I miss-read the gentoo docs?
> >
> 
> So, first, this isn't really the forum to critique what the devs did,
> and I haven't spoken to them so I can't vouch for what their knowledge
> was at the time.

Excuse me, but I did not criticize anyone. I *appreciate* what the devs do;
in fact so much, I've started down that path myself. As one who has put
together dozens of ebuilds, but few published, I greatly appreciated their
work and the opportunity to learn from all mistakes, mine and the devs.
Besides, I'm not a dev, so what forum would be more appropriate to question
and learn about ebuilds and booboos? So please appreciated that thge focus
of my questions, *are to learn* with a robust discussion, as I do intend to
seek dev_status one day. Are 'users' discouraged from breaking down
package/ebuild issues in this forum? If so, which forum can I ask questions,
even the dumb ones?


> Revbumping wouldn't help, and I'm pretty sure they did revbump it.
> The real issue was upstream, and I'd have to think about whether
> trying to fix it with a Gentoo patch would make things better or worse
> (it would make Gentoo different from everybody else, causing havoc if
> you had a proprietary binary you wanted to run and so on).

One of the dev-quiz questions is about how long to leave a package in
testing, with 30 days being the minimum, unless there is critical need,
or have I not correctly understood the docs and devmanual? Again, I have no
idea how long this package was in 'testing' but, this does sound like an
excellent opportunity for fledgling devs to learn a bit deeper?  My
intentions are only based on the good for this distro, but, close
examination, at least for me, is highly warranted. 


So what commands do I run (git style) to see the history of the relevant
build/release dates for openssl? The changelog seems incomplete....


> Upstream really dropped the ball on this.  When I'm updating packages
> I certainly don't carefully review all their ABIs and SONAMEs.
> Without some kind of automatic QA tool it would be a pretty big
> undertaking.  I might go see if there is such a tool though, maybe
> that might be a good outcome if such a tool exists.

> >> Everybody should be on the lookout for this update and carefully
> >> follow the forum post instructions to get through it.  Again, in 
> >> light of the dev-quizes, should not the package maintainer have
> >> posted a news item prior/simultaneously to the new package release?

> Sure, if they had known about it.  However, it sounds like they may
> have been as surprised as anybody else.  I'd really like to see one
> right away though.


Thanks!  Good answer and now I'll have to go an edited/update my dev quiz
responses to indicate that a late news items, for something critical or that
touches so many packages, is warranted. Excellent, concrete example. One of
the things I have been working on, is supplying more details examples to the
devmanual current editor, just like this one, to reinforce the key
principles of the devmanual. I think some kind of footnotes to lots of
practical examples, is *exactly what the dev manual is missing* imho.


> The way openssl handles their ABIs really makes me think that libressl
> may not be the lesser evil.  Sloppy SONAME handling causes all kinds
> of issues though and seeing it in high-profile projects like these is
> pretty concerning.

Good to know. In fact gentoo supports such a wide variety of libs so all of
this information, in a practical example, is very valuable imho.


> > Not trying to stir things up, just scratching many itches here on the
> > dev-quizes. Surely we are all human(oid) and thus forgiving of our
> > comrades....even to the point of encouragement?

> Of course.  To err is human.  To stabilize errs carries the death  
> penalty.  :)  (I'm sure somebody will file that away for the next 
> stable package I  break.)

Easy on being so critical, either for others or yourself. I've been hacking
on ebuilds for almost a year now, and there is good reason quite a few
of mine are still not published....... Besides this is excellent evidence
for CI (Jenkins + Gerrit) ?   Are you not a proponent of CI for Gentoo?
That's a common and ordinary usage for clusters these days.....


I do appreciate the information and candor!


be at peace,
James