On Mon, 2005-12-19 at 17:49 +0100, Marius Mauch wrote:
> Ok, the subject might be confusing, so let me explain this a bit:
> 
> Whenever we want/need to make structural changes to the tree that are
> going to break backwards compability we have a serious problem (see
> GLEP 44 in case you don't know about it). To reduce the impact of that
> problem I've got the idea to make the tree itself (so not any
> particular ebuild or profile) DEPEND on a minimal portage version,
Makes syncing a bit more complicated.
Downside: potentially more problems
Upside: if there's a disruptive change people will at all times have a
working system (just think about stacked profiles :-) )

> which the users would be forced to upgrade to (maybe with an override)
> before they can do anything else (with the exception of --sync).
Or you have a "version file" transferred by rsync (like timestamp)
When version > portage version: fetch a static portage tree from a known
location (mirror://portage-update-version-N.tbz2 or something)
(emerge-delta-webrsync to the rescue!)
> Manifest2 is one example for such a situation, another one is the
> request to not create manifest entries for ChangeLog and metadata.xml
> anymore (needs >=2.0.51.20 on user side).
> Don't really like this idea myself, but somthing needs to be done to at
> least reduce the problem, having to wait years for old portage versions
> to (almost) vanish can't be a permanent solution.
I don't like it, but unless portage is smart enough to self-update before 
anything else ...

> Also not talking about implementation details yet, just after comments
> about the general idea of forced portage updates.
If documented properly and guaranteed to work for at least n months after a 
format change I like it
(But I guess iterative updates should work "forever" as long as all
files still exist)

> And just in case anybody wonders: this cannot be fixed with EAPI or
> adding a portage dep on packages as those only take effect when the
> ebuild is already parsed while the mentioned problems occur much
> earlier.
Thanks for bringing it up for discussion!

Patrick
-- 
Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move

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