Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-30 Thread Peter Volkov
В Вск, 30/11/2008 в 16:59 -0600, Ryan Hill пишет:
> On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:13:34 -0500
> Mark Loeser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [proposal]

> I know it's not directly related to stabilization, but lately people
> have been removing the only keyworded package for the mips arch, under
> the excuse that's it's been over 30 days since they opened a keywording
> bug.  This has been happening on bugs where there are technical issues
> and on bugs where we just haven't replied (in which case i can see the
> justification).  I don't think this is acceptable, just as I don't
> think removing the only stable version of a package on an arch is
> be acceptable, barring the circumstances Mark outlined above.

That people should revert back that ebuilds then. Of course it's not
acceptable to remove keywords just because of one's wishes. As it was
told in this thread old ebuilds are not maintainer's concern and he/she
could touch them only after all arch teams finish their work. Until they
done all bugs in old ebuilds should be assigned on arch teams.

-- 
Peter.




[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-30 Thread Ryan Hill
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:13:34 -0500
Mark Loeser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Instead of addressing archs as being slackers or not, this addresses
> it as a more granular layer of looking at ebuilds.  Thanks to Richard
> Freeman for the initial proposal that I based this off of.  Please
> give me feedback on this proposal, if you think it sucks (preferably
> with an explanation why), or if you think it might work.
> 
> Ebuild Stabilization Time
> 
> Arch teams will normally have 30 days from the day a bug was filed,
> keyworded STABLEREQ, the arch was CCed, and the maintainer either
> filed the bug or commented that it was OK to stabilize (clock starts
> when all of these conditions are met).
> 
> Security bugs are to be handled by the policies the Security Team has
> established.
> 
> Technical Problems with Ebuild Revisions
> 
> If an arch team finds a technical problem with an ebuild preventing
> stabilization, a bug will be logged as a blocker for the keyword
> request.  The bug being resolved resets the time for the 30 days the
> arch team has to mark the ebuild stable.
> 
> Removing Stable Ebuilds
> 
> If an ebuild meets the time criteria above, and there are no
> technical issues preventing stabilization, then the maintainer MAY
> choose to delete an older version even if it is the most recent
> stable version for a particular arch.
> 
> If an ebuild meets the time criteria above, but there is a technical
> issue preventing stabilization, and there are no outstanding security
> issues, then the maintainer MUST not remove the highest-versioned
> stable ebuild for any given arch without the approval of the arch
> team.
> 
> Security issues are to be handled by the recommendations of the
> Security Team.
> 
> Spirit of Cooperation
> 
> Ebuild maintainer and arch teams are encouraged to work together for
> the sake of each other and end users in facilitating the testing and
> maintenance of ebuilds on obscure hardware, or where obscure
> expertise is needed.  Package maintainers are encouraged to use
> discretion when removing ebuilds in accordance with this policy.

Since I completely stalled out this conversation I guess it's only fair
that I try to restart it.  I'm in favor of the above.

I know it's not directly related to stabilization, but lately people
have been removing the only keyworded package for the mips arch, under
the excuse that's it's been over 30 days since they opened a keywording
bug.  This has been happening on bugs where there are technical issues
and on bugs where we just haven't replied (in which case i can see the
justification).  I don't think this is acceptable, just as I don't
think removing the only stable version of a package on an arch is
be acceptable, barring the circumstances Mark outlined above.

Yes?  No?  Get out of our treehouse?


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Ryan Hill
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:04:33 -0500
Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Honestly, I don't want to be a dick to the arch teams.  I really
> don't. But I *also* don't want them (or policy) to be a dick to me.
> That's my whole point; that requirement of never removing the last
> stable ebuild, in shouting caps no less, is way too absolute, and is
> just going to piss people like me off.

For the record, the all in caps bit was a tongue-in-cheek reference to
the ultra-formal format that the IETF RFC's are in that was being
emulated here.  It was included for levity, not for shouting.

http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Daniel Gryniewicz
On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 15:18 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:23 -0500
> Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 19:08 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > > On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:57 -0500
> > > Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 18:38 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove
> > > > > the latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the
> > > > > arch team or he/she will be fed to the Galrog.
> > > > 
> > > > As long as the maintainer can pass off the maintenance of the
> > > > (sometimes dozens) of ancient ebuilds that need to be kept around
> > > > for that one arch to the arch team, and re-assign any resulting
> > > > bugs to them, fine.
> > > 
> > > Since when do we maintain ancient ebuilds kept around for an arch
> > > team now?  Drop the other keywords and get on with your life.
> > 
> > Since forever, at least in my experience.  See below.
> > 
> > > 
> > > Did you not read the first part of the suggestion?  
> > 
> > Yes.  I was not objecting to this sequence.  I was objecting to the
> > "MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT" part.
> > 
> > > 
> > > - maintainer files a stabilization request.
> > > - arch testers do their thing
> > > - arch teams gradually mark ebuild stable
> > > - maintainer pokes arm, sh, mips, ppc (only an example, relax)
> > > - mips reminds maintainer there is no stable mips keyword
> > > - ppc stables
> > > - maintainer waits
> > > - maintainer pokes arm, sh
> > > - maintainer waits
> > > - maintainer marks stable on arm, sh
> > > - maintainer removes ancient stable ebuilds that maintainer doesn't
> > >   want to maintain anymore because everyone has a nice new stable
> > >   ebuild.
> > > - maintainer goes out for a frosty beverage
> > 
> > - Arch team comes back and says the new version doesn't work.
> > - Maintainer is stuck maintaining the old version *forever*, at least
> > potentially.
> 
> See, here's your problem.  If the arch team has issues and needs an
> old ebuild, the arch team is effectively the maintainer of that
> ebuild.  Drop the other keywords if you like, and forget it exists.

Leaving unmaintained ebuilds in the tree.  If that's what people want,
that's fine with me.

> 
> > Concrete example.  Gnome was keyworded on an arch.  A new version of
> > gnome came out that needed hal.  Hal did not work on said arch.  For a
> > long long time, we had to keep a very old version of gnome in the
> > tree, just for that arch.  This was a maintenance burden.  Gnome is
> > not just one or 2 packages.
> 
> So you would rather have the ability to just drop the keywords on
> this arch and leave them and their gnome users up the creek?

No.  But I also don't want any policy that forbids me from ever removing
that ebuild.  Which is what the above is proposing.  I don't want any
kind of absolutes in policy.  If you advocate absolutes in favor of the
arch teams to the detriment of the maintainers, then the maintainers are
going to ask for absolutes (such as I asked for above) in retaliation,
and we'll have a thermonuclear meltdown.  That's all.

Honestly, I don't want to be a dick to the arch teams.  I really don't.
But I *also* don't want them (or policy) to be a dick to me.  That's my
whole point; that requirement of never removing the last stable ebuild,
in shouting caps no less, is way too absolute, and is just going to piss
people like me off.

I think the whole policy should be more-or-less "Don't be a dick.  Take
the other guy into account."  Leave shouting-caps absolute requirements
out of it.

(For what it's worth, with my arch team hat on, I'm not in favor of
letting anyone mark things stable on arches they can't test on.  But
that's a much lesser issue IMO than absolute prohibitions on removing
ebuilds.)

Daniel




[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Ryan Hill
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:23 -0500
Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 19:08 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:57 -0500
> > Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 18:38 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove
> > > > the latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the
> > > > arch team or he/she will be fed to the Galrog.
> > > 
> > > As long as the maintainer can pass off the maintenance of the
> > > (sometimes dozens) of ancient ebuilds that need to be kept around
> > > for that one arch to the arch team, and re-assign any resulting
> > > bugs to them, fine.
> > 
> > Since when do we maintain ancient ebuilds kept around for an arch
> > team now?  Drop the other keywords and get on with your life.
> 
> Since forever, at least in my experience.  See below.
> 
> > 
> > Did you not read the first part of the suggestion?  
> 
> Yes.  I was not objecting to this sequence.  I was objecting to the
> "MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT" part.
> 
> > 
> > - maintainer files a stabilization request.
> > - arch testers do their thing
> > - arch teams gradually mark ebuild stable
> > - maintainer pokes arm, sh, mips, ppc (only an example, relax)
> > - mips reminds maintainer there is no stable mips keyword
> > - ppc stables
> > - maintainer waits
> > - maintainer pokes arm, sh
> > - maintainer waits
> > - maintainer marks stable on arm, sh
> > - maintainer removes ancient stable ebuilds that maintainer doesn't
> >   want to maintain anymore because everyone has a nice new stable
> >   ebuild.
> > - maintainer goes out for a frosty beverage
> 
> - Arch team comes back and says the new version doesn't work.
> - Maintainer is stuck maintaining the old version *forever*, at least
> potentially.

See, here's your problem.  If the arch team has issues and needs an
old ebuild, the arch team is effectively the maintainer of that
ebuild.  Drop the other keywords if you like, and forget it exists.

> Concrete example.  Gnome was keyworded on an arch.  A new version of
> gnome came out that needed hal.  Hal did not work on said arch.  For a
> long long time, we had to keep a very old version of gnome in the
> tree, just for that arch.  This was a maintenance burden.  Gnome is
> not just one or 2 packages.

So you would rather have the ability to just drop the keywords on
this arch and leave them and their gnome users up the creek?

> > the idea is that arch teams are around to help the maintainer test
> > on architectures the maintainer doesn't have.  if the arch teams are
> > unable or unwilling to help at the moment, that should not stop the
> > maintainer from maintaining.
> > 
> > also keep in mind that this only occurs after the arch teams have
> > ample time to interject (which is why i suggested 90 days).  if an
> > arch team can't comment on a bug in 3 months (a simple "i'd rather
> > this not go stable until i can test it further" should be enough)
> > then they have IMO lost their opportunity to matter.
> 
> This is not about arches just being slackers.  This is about arches
> denying stable (or even ~) for some reason.  If I cannot drop an old
> version of something just because the new version doesn't (and won't)
> work on an arch, that's really bad for me.

I know I've been oversimplifying things thus far, and I understand this
is a real problem for you.  However, I believe that as bad as it is for
you, dumping the problem on the user is the greater evil.

And yes, this is not an attempt to solve everything - it is directly
aimed at the slacker problem, which i think is the biggest part of the
issue.  Other problems will need other solutions.

In any case, if you still think it's unworkable and dropping keywords
is the correct solution, I won't continue pushing it.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Daniel Gryniewicz
On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 17:50 +, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:23 -0500
> Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > This is not about arches just being slackers.  This is about arches
> > denying stable (or even ~) for some reason.  If I cannot drop an old
> > version of something just because the new version doesn't (and won't)
> > work on an arch, that's really bad for me.
> 
> What is the cost of keeping it there and not changing it?
> 

Assuming no one ever uses it?  Just some sync bandwidth, emerge think
time, and disk space.  Not a lot.  However, if people use it, and
especially if they manage to get mixed versions of gnome with it (or new
versions of apps built against it), then we get lots of bugs about it.
Generally, we tend to get lots of interaction bugs about old versions of
gnome.  That's why we try to remove them.

One of the biggest problems is packages not having the correct upstream
deps, since upstream and most distros have moved on to new versions of
gnome.  There's no way we can catch those (since we, too, have moved on
to new versions) and users find them and report them.  Most users I've
encountered don't do --deep upgrades, ever.

I suppose a possible solution would be to de-keyword all those old
versions for all other arches.  That would reduce such reported bugs to
users of the arch in question.  It still leaves something unmaintained
(and probably unmaintainable, except maybe on the target arch) in the
tree marked as stable.  That's a bad thing in-and-of itself.

Daniel




Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Ciaran McCreesh
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:23 -0500
Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This is not about arches just being slackers.  This is about arches
> denying stable (or even ~) for some reason.  If I cannot drop an old
> version of something just because the new version doesn't (and won't)
> work on an arch, that's really bad for me.

What is the cost of keeping it there and not changing it?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-18 Thread Daniel Gryniewicz
On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 19:08 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:57 -0500
> Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 18:38 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove the
> > > latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the arch
> > > team or he/she will be fed to the Galrog.
> > 
> > As long as the maintainer can pass off the maintenance of the
> > (sometimes dozens) of ancient ebuilds that need to be kept around for
> > that one arch to the arch team, and re-assign any resulting bugs to
> > them, fine.
> 
> Since when do we maintain ancient ebuilds kept around for an arch
> team now?  Drop the other keywords and get on with your life.

Since forever, at least in my experience.  See below.

> 
> Did you not read the first part of the suggestion?  

Yes.  I was not objecting to this sequence.  I was objecting to the
"MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT" part.

> 
> - maintainer files a stabilization request.
> - arch testers do their thing
> - arch teams gradually mark ebuild stable
> - maintainer pokes arm, sh, mips, ppc (only an example, relax)
> - mips reminds maintainer there is no stable mips keyword
> - ppc stables
> - maintainer waits
> - maintainer pokes arm, sh
> - maintainer waits
> - maintainer marks stable on arm, sh
> - maintainer removes ancient stable ebuilds that maintainer doesn't
>   want to maintain anymore because everyone has a nice new stable
>   ebuild.
> - maintainer goes out for a frosty beverage

- Arch team comes back and says the new version doesn't work.
- Maintainer is stuck maintaining the old version *forever*, at least
potentially.

Concrete example.  Gnome was keyworded on an arch.  A new version of
gnome came out that needed hal.  Hal did not work on said arch.  For a
long long time, we had to keep a very old version of gnome in the tree,
just for that arch.  This was a maintenance burden.  Gnome is not just
one or 2 packages.

> 
> the idea is that arch teams are around to help the maintainer test on
> architectures the maintainer doesn't have.  if the arch teams are
> unable or unwilling to help at the moment, that should not stop the
> maintainer from maintaining.
> 
> also keep in mind that this only occurs after the arch teams have ample
> time to interject (which is why i suggested 90 days).  if an arch team
> can't comment on a bug in 3 months (a simple "i'd rather this not go
> stable until i can test it further" should be enough) then they have
> IMO lost their opportunity to matter.

This is not about arches just being slackers.  This is about arches
denying stable (or even ~) for some reason.  If I cannot drop an old
version of something just because the new version doesn't (and won't)
work on an arch, that's really bad for me.

Daniel




[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-17 Thread Ryan Hill
On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:57 -0500
Daniel Gryniewicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 18:38 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove the
> > latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the arch
> > team or he/she will be fed to the Galrog.
> 
> As long as the maintainer can pass off the maintenance of the
> (sometimes dozens) of ancient ebuilds that need to be kept around for
> that one arch to the arch team, and re-assign any resulting bugs to
> them, fine.

Since when do we maintain ancient ebuilds kept around for an arch
team now?  Drop the other keywords and get on with your life.

> Or, alternatively, unilaterally decide to drop all
> keywords for the arch in question.
> 
> Yes, that was extreme, but no more than the previous quoted statement.

You sir, have an appointment with the Galrog.

> There needs to be give and take here.  Yes, it's really bad to remove
> the last stable ebuild for an arch.  However, its *also* bad to have
> to maintain years old versions of lots of ebuilds.  And yes, it will
> be a lot, since most packages don't exist in a vacuum, and require
> older deps (which possibly will be maintained by other maintainers
> than the first package, causing a cascade of old packages in the
> tree).
> 
> All this will do in practice is cause maintainers to ignore bugs for
> those old packages for those few arches, since the maintainer won't
> have that version installed.  In fact, in my experience, they
> frequently *can't* have that version installed, since it requires
> older versions of other packages that need to be upgraded to maintain
> newer versions of the same package.
> 
> How much bit rot do we want in the tree?
> 
> Daniel (who is both an arch team member and gnome team lead)

Did you not read the first part of the suggestion?  

- maintainer files a stabilization request.
- arch testers do their thing
- arch teams gradually mark ebuild stable
- maintainer pokes arm, sh, mips, ppc (only an example, relax)
- mips reminds maintainer there is no stable mips keyword
- ppc stables
- maintainer waits
- maintainer pokes arm, sh
- maintainer waits
- maintainer marks stable on arm, sh
- maintainer removes ancient stable ebuilds that maintainer doesn't
  want to maintain anymore because everyone has a nice new stable
  ebuild.
- maintainer goes out for a frosty beverage


the idea is that arch teams are around to help the maintainer test on
architectures the maintainer doesn't have.  if the arch teams are
unable or unwilling to help at the moment, that should not stop the
maintainer from maintaining.

also keep in mind that this only occurs after the arch teams have ample
time to interject (which is why i suggested 90 days).  if an arch team
can't comment on a bug in 3 months (a simple "i'd rather this not go
stable until i can test it further" should be enough) then they have
IMO lost their opportunity to matter.


-- 
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[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-17 Thread Duncan
Tobias Scherbaum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted
[EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on  Mon, 17
Nov 2008 19:08:39 +0100:

> Process might be as easy
> as CC'ing a arch-tinderbox on a bug, a script does parse the bug number
> out of the mail being sent out and using gatt it catches the ebuild to
> test, compiles it and reports back a) failure/success, b) error log as
> attachment if it fails plus c) if there was a test-phase.

Surely, you're talking something other than the publicly writable CC 
field, something writable by devs (and maybe ATs) only, right?  Otherwise 
it's a security nightmare.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman




Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-17 Thread Daniel Gryniewicz
On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 18:38 -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:



> The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove the
> latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the arch team or
> he/she will be fed to the Galrog.

As long as the maintainer can pass off the maintenance of the (sometimes
dozens) of ancient ebuilds that need to be kept around for that one arch
to the arch team, and re-assign any resulting bugs to them, fine.  Or,
alternatively, unilaterally decide to drop all keywords for the arch in
question.

Yes, that was extreme, but no more than the previous quoted statement.
There needs to be give and take here.  Yes, it's really bad to remove
the last stable ebuild for an arch.  However, its *also* bad to have to
maintain years old versions of lots of ebuilds.  And yes, it will be a
lot, since most packages don't exist in a vacuum, and require older deps
(which possibly will be maintained by other maintainers than the first
package, causing a cascade of old packages in the tree).

All this will do in practice is cause maintainers to ignore bugs for
those old packages for those few arches, since the maintainer won't have
that version installed.  In fact, in my experience, they frequently
*can't* have that version installed, since it requires older versions of
other packages that need to be upgraded to maintain newer versions of
the same package.

How much bit rot do we want in the tree?

Daniel (who is both an arch team member and gnome team lead)





[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-16 Thread Ryan Hill
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:13:34 -0500
Mark Loeser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> If an ebuild meets the time criteria above, and there are no
> technical issues preventing stabilization, then the maintainer MAY
[...] mark that ebuild as stable on every keyworded arch (that has a
stable keyword).

> If an ebuild meets the time criteria above, but there is a technical
> issue preventing stabilization, and there are no outstanding security
> issues,
[...] the maintainer MUST NOT mark the ebuild stable without the
approval of the arch team.

If technical issues arise after an ebuild is stabilized automatically,
the arch team MAY revert the ebuild to ~arch if another ebuild with a
stable keyword is still available or restore the previous stable ebuild
to the tree if not, until such time that the issue is resolved, or
stabilize a later versioned ebuild that does not exhibit the issue at
the maintainer's approval.

The maintainer MUST NOT NEVER EVER NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT remove the
latest stable ebuild of an arch without the approval of the arch team or
he/she will be fed to the Galrog.


and s/30 days/90 days/g.


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Duncan
Jeroen Roovers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted
[EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on  Tue, 11
Nov 2008 19:12:41 +0100:

> You did it again in the "IOW" quotation above explaining it as a "triple
> emphasis" instead of what it was intended to denote, namely as a few
> possible examples of the meaning of "stability".

In that case, I misread, as I interpreted the triple as emphasis, not 
alternatives.  If it was intended as alternatives, then yes, it makes 
sense.

Thanks.  I wasn't seeing the alternatives view at all (obviously).

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman




Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Jeroen Roovers
On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:26:51 + (UTC)
Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > Words
> > like "production", "critical" and "important" can be applied as
> > easily to the state of a company's or nation's system as to a
> > single person's.

> Yes, but it's a relative thing.
>huge snip<

That's what I said, only in many more words and with a confusing "Yes,
but" at the start, as if you were complementing or correcting what I
said.

> IOW, I'd have agreed if the point was that it's a machine that's
> useful to the user and that he doesn't want broken, and we should
> behave accordingly, but the triple emphasis of important, production,
> critical, seemed a bit undue for the lengths to which an ordinary
> user goes or the priority he reveals by his own actions.  And if his
> actions reveal a SERIOUS priority in the area, than he's already
> covered by definition. That's all I was saying.

Um, you didn't say all of that. In fact you said none of that. You said:

> If it's a "production, critical, important" system, then what is one
> doing installing updates on it directly without verifying them on a
> generally identical test system first?

Users with only one Gentoo system to work with rely on ebuild
maintainers and arch teams to run the "generally identical test
systems" on their behalf (and respectively request and establish what
the stable branch is).

yoswink said this:

> Are you going to install in your stable (production, critial,
> important,...) system a combination of packages not tested before?

He takes "stable" to mean one of three things, or maybe even something
completely different ("...") that some user out there might take to mean
"stable"[1]. Then you rip some of the punctuation out and put these
words in his mouth:

> If it's a "production, critical, important" system,

going on to talk about the discrepancy between best practices in
*corporate* software deployment and ignoring Gentoo's stable branch.

You did it again in the "IOW" quotation above explaining it as a "triple
emphasis" instead of what it was intended to denote, namely as a few
possible examples of the meaning of "stability".


Kind regards,
 jer


[1] To which I responded by pointing to Gentoo's philosophical blurb.



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Ferris McCormick
On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 17:26 +, Duncan wrote:
> Jeroen Roovers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted
> [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on  Tue, 11
> Nov 2008 17:24:50 +0100:
> 
> > Words
> > like "production", "critical" and "important" can be applied as easily
> > to the state of a company's or nation's system as to a single person's.
> 
> Yes, but it's a relative thing.  They obviously do what they can with the 
> resources they have (are willing to dedicate).  We do the same.  A user's 
> single system will absolutely be important to him, no doubt about it, but 
> if he doesn't believe it worth "superhuman" feats or prioritizing to 
> ensure it's safety, neither should we.

I think I understand what you mean here, but it's not what you wrote as
best as I can tell.  As a developer, I believe it is my responsibility
to work a bit harder just so that the users don't have to resort to
'"superhuman" feats' to keep their systems running.  I do agree that no
matter what we provide, all users (including ourselves) will have to
expend some effort to take advantage of it.

> No, we don't go around 
> purposefully breaking things, but both he and we have limits to our 
> resources and certain priorities in their allocation, and if he's not 
> placing undue priority on the safety of his machine, why is it even a 
> question if we will?  The presumption should be actions within the bounds 
> of rational reality and prioritization of resources for both users and 
> their distribution, us.  No more, no less.
> 
> IOW, I'd have agreed if the point was that it's a machine that's useful 
> to the user and that he doesn't want broken, and we should behave 
> accordingly, but the triple emphasis of important, production, critical, 
> seemed a bit undue for the lengths to which an ordinary user goes or the 
> priority he reveals by his own actions.  And if his actions reveal a 
> SERIOUS priority in the area, than he's already covered by definition.  
> That's all I was saying.

Regards,
Ferris

-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Sparc, Userrel, Trustees)


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Duncan
Jeroen Roovers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted
[EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on  Tue, 11
Nov 2008 17:24:50 +0100:

> Words
> like "production", "critical" and "important" can be applied as easily
> to the state of a company's or nation's system as to a single person's.

Yes, but it's a relative thing.  They obviously do what they can with the 
resources they have (are willing to dedicate).  We do the same.  A user's 
single system will absolutely be important to him, no doubt about it, but 
if he doesn't believe it worth "superhuman" feats or prioritizing to 
ensure it's safety, neither should we.  No, we don't go around 
purposefully breaking things, but both he and we have limits to our 
resources and certain priorities in their allocation, and if he's not 
placing undue priority on the safety of his machine, why is it even a 
question if we will?  The presumption should be actions within the bounds 
of rational reality and prioritization of resources for both users and 
their distribution, us.  No more, no less.

IOW, I'd have agreed if the point was that it's a machine that's useful 
to the user and that he doesn't want broken, and we should behave 
accordingly, but the triple emphasis of important, production, critical, 
seemed a bit undue for the lengths to which an ordinary user goes or the 
priority he reveals by his own actions.  And if his actions reveal a 
SERIOUS priority in the area, than he's already covered by definition.  
That's all I was saying.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman




Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Jeroen Roovers
On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:06:02 + (UTC)
Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> If it's a "production, critical, important" system, then what is one 
> doing installing updates on it directly without verifying them on a 
> generally identical test system first?

Now you're ridiculing the idea of having a "production/ critical/
important" system. Most of our users probably use a single Gentoo
machine (I see many cases where users have multiple machines, but only
one running Gentoo, or have one machine running several operating
systems), and for them an important system is one that they cannot
readily replace. Words like "production", "critical" and "important"
can be applied as easily to the state of a company's or nation's
system as to a single person's.

The stable branch has never been about commercial systems and their
stringent requirements[1] - it's all about this level of quality that
has users up in arms about one package blocking another or one package
requiring half the system to be rebuilt at a rate of no more than once a
year[2].


Kind regards,
 jer


[1] We've had calls for an über-stable project in the past that would
lock down versions and backport patches for enterprise systems.
[2] I.e. when we break the promise of [3].
]3] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml



[gentoo-dev] Re: Proposal for how to handle stable ebuilds

2008-11-11 Thread Duncan
Jose Luis Rivero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED],
excerpted below, on  Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:18:34 +0100:

> Mixing software branches is very easy in the Gentoo world but it has
> some problems. Are you going to install in your stable (production,
> critial, important,...) system a combination of packages not tested
> before?

Your general post I agree with, but this part...

If it's a "production, critical, important" system, then what is one 
doing installing updates on it directly without verifying them on a 
generally identical test system first?  Either it's not actually so 
important in the grand scheme of things after all, or one will certainly 
find out eventually just how critical said machine is when it goes down 
due to "live" testing on a production critical machine.

Of course, that doesn't excuse a distribution doing its best to ensure 
that doesn't happen, but no distribution is perfect.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman