-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/13/2013 09:16 AM, Ian Stakenvicius wrote: > On 13/11/13 09:55 AM, Thomas Kahle wrote: >> On 11/13/2013 03:30 PM, Duncan wrote: >>> Rich Freeman posted on Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:37:51 -0500 as >>> excerpted: >>> >>>> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:25 AM, Thomas Kahle >>>> <to...@gentoo.org> wrote: >>>>> On 11/13/2013 12:39 PM, Tom Wijsman wrote: >>>>>> On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:28:02 +0000 (UTC) Martin Vaeth >>>>>> <va...@mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Hello. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The new "features" use.stable.mask and >>>>>>> package.use.stable.mask have turned maintaining >>>>>>> systems with mixed ARCH and ~ARCH keywords into a >>>>>>> nightmare: >>>>>> >>>>>> They are considered unsupported by many; so, going down >>>>>> that path you need to be acquainted with Portage enough >>>>>> to keep a consistent system. >>>>> >>>>> This argument has come up several times, but is it valid? >>>> >>>> Honestly, opinions vary on this one and I don't think it is >>>> a productive path to go down. I also feel that being able to >>>> mix keywords is a big benefit of using Gentoo. I'd rather >>>> focus on practical ways to make this easier rather than >>>> whether it is desirable. >>>> >>>> That said, there are always going to be situations where >>>> mixing keywords isn't practical. You're not going to run >>>> stable chromium against ~arch v8, or mixed keywords between >>>> kdelibs and kwin, etc. >>> >>> FWIW, I believe at least part of the confusion here is based >>> on differing definitions of "supported". > >> I agree. Generally however, we should think Gentoo (or the open >> source ecosystem) more bazaar, less cathedral. Libraries have >> interfaces, and they are supposed to be mixed and matched >> according to the interface definitions. We (Gentoo) should not >> think of "Gentoo stable" as a fixed product like "iOS-7". It has >> come a long way, but philosophically I still think of Gentoo as a >> kind of automated Linux-from-scratch (where you also mix and >> match whatever you find on the Internets). > >> In the end it boils down to what we mean by "supported". For me >> "supported" does not mean "tested". As you point out, testing >> every combination forbids itself. Supported for me means that >> the argument "you mixed stable and unstable" is not per se valid. >> There's a huge difference between > >> You mixed unstable firefox with stable gcc > >> and > >> You mixed unstable X server with stable protocols. > >> For me mixing the trees is supported in the sense that I would >> apply rational judgement to bugs. If they are of the second >> type, it can be said in a polite way that we as Gentoo can't do >> anything about this combination not working. > > > The term "supported" is a rather overloaded term which tends to > mean different things in gentoo depending on the context that it is > used (and who's using it), for sure. It's also not analogous to > "working" or "expected to work", at all, imo. > > I wonder if it might be a good idea to have a discussion and reach > consensus on what the Gentoo (Developer) definition of "Supported" > should actually be, and document this somewhere so that ambiguity > can be officially removed. > > Not a developer, but when I see discussions about things that are unsupported by the dev team, I think of it as "This is a special case that's outside of our workflow and would add an exponential amount of work for us if we tried to support it." Support, in this context, I think refers to supporting bug reports and use cases. As mentioned previously, it's impossible to account for every combination. If developers stick to pure arch or pure ~arch, it's a hell of a lot simpler to carry out the job, and I totally respect that.
I've had minimal problems mixing ~arch and arch, but based on what I've read and my understanding of FOSS culture in general... "If you go off the beaten path and break something, you get to keep the pieces." Surely I'm not alone in that understanding. It's simple and closer to pragmatism than any perceived malice or laziness that some may be assuming about the developers. ~Daniel -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSg8t0AAoJEJUrb08JgYgHr44H/RUC4AXvAX2n1GoaITV2uI3Y ZlKlpmyKk/rT0ucNAQhR+RUmZRuq+7Nuubxl6EH4eacfaqkkWLQjgsYJYUj49yFy gGcXzsIfcWQg6DQcNGEvN2V9ICjI4Gsh1aQanKBORGPSomm3Nm7xsccXVYqTydIl 61lHHnWb1uECEA8Q+H10X3pw/Ila946LtL3uKUXuCooFmX6haAi5zLAGruMFH/1J PCjApzSnNfMRFHyRJ5XgQTmpBVrk48ps9QGKqU26DBhrsbiTwocdSXq44oVh4YPK 43nxpjnVhMkc54xSbbXEp+QVjOYno9RhoxUfQCOj4WqE0N1PI0ZhWmas1NyW/wU= =deQz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
