On 12:01 Tue 16 Oct     , Andrey G. Grozin wrote:
> The original cryos' idea when he created the science overlay was a place to 
> develop ebuilds until they become mature enough to be moved to the main 
> tree (I can dig his original post about this subject). He suggested that 
> ebuilds whould, in most cases, be moved to the main tree quickly enough.

OK, sure, but historic reasons are not future reasons. If things should 
change, this is not a reason to hold it back.

> Gentoo users are not instructed to use overlays. Most of them just don't 
> know about them. Hunting for an interesting package in many tens of 
> overlays present at overlays.gentoo.org is not easy.

There is http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/userguide.xml -- for 
some reason, it doesn't appear to be linked from the main docs section. 
I just asked in #gentoo-doc about this.

I agree that hunting could be difficult, but most of the project (rather 
than developer-owned) overlays are topical by definition. If I'm looking 
for a scientific application, it shouldn't take a leap of logic to try 
the science overlay. Also, eix (a searching tool) includes a searchable 
package cache of every overlay, generated daily.

> 1. Inform users *prominently* that some interesting packages don't live in 
> the main portage tree (currently, not many users know this).

Yep.

> Who will decide which packages are first-class citizens and which are not? 
> What are the criteria?

I suggested a few.
        - Is a developer willing to commit to maintaining it?
        - Is it expected to be fairly popular, or is it extremely specific?
        - (for apps already in the tree) Is it unmaintained? Should it be 
                moved to an overlay?

Thanks,
Donnie
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