I've tried to divide up the various things being discussed here.
Regarding paludis:
- The syntax change in question affects >=paludis-0.24
- The old syntax is still accepted
- A warning message is printed to the console by paludis when
the old (deprecated) syntax is detected
- The warning message includes basic instructions on how to fix the
deprecated syntax.
- The user isn't affected by the change in any other way
- The syntax can't be fixed automatically
Is the above correct?
Regarding the GLEP:
There's reasonable doubt whether the news item can be classified as
"critical news", and also whether it satisfies this sentence from the GLEP:
News items must only be for important changes that may cause
serious upgrade or compatibility problems.
However, Ciaran (the primary GLEP author) tells us that the GLEP was
written with the mindset to allow these kinds of news items, i.e. some
of us are misinterpreting the text.
Specifically, the news is useful/beneficial/interesting to all or almost
all paludis users so it should be put in place regardless of importance:
It's something that is of sufficient interest to those who will
read the news item that a news item is warranted.
I can understand that the system may have been dreamed up with this in
mind, and this certainly isn't an unreasonable design, but I don't see
the corresponding text in the GLEP.
Mike already suggested that we set some news standards. I think we
should go further: after discussion if we do decide this kind of article
is valid news, then we should carefully reword some parts of the GLEP
and maybe even rename it. Adding a few examples of valid and invalid
items (plus explanations why) would be beneficial as well.
Regarding elog:
Some people have suggested that elog is a suitable way of providing the
syntax change information here. The main argument against this is that
the Portage implementation isn't good enough (or perhaps isn't good
enough by default, or perhaps isn't good enough in the released versions).
If we can agree that the concept of elog satisfies the requirements
here, then we should be focusing on fixing that rather than arguing
about a different news system which isn't even implemented in the latest
released version of Portage, right? Portage's news implementation might
even be worse than the elog implementation...
Regarding the committed news item:
I spoke to Alec on IRC. Even after doing so, I don't really understand
why he committed this, but it sounds like he wanted to stir things up.
He doesn't acknowledge that he had any particular power to make the
decision in this situation. He is surprised that nobody approached him
before complaining to the council (not that any complaints have been
filed in any official sense to my knowledge).
He was already aware that he violated the GLEP, which requires at least
72 hours before the news item gets committed.
I think someone should revert this commit until discussion has settled
and the GLEP wording has been refined.
Corrections appreciated.
Daniel
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