On Tuesday 09 December 2008 12:13:40 pm Petteri Räty wrote: > Robert R. Russell wrote: > > My personal opinion on this matter is pick one of the following: > > 1) perform the bugfix without a version bump and remain at the current > > EAPI version > > 2) perform the bugfix with a version bump and remain at the current EAPI > > version > > 3) perform the bugfix with a version bump and upgrade to the latest EAPI > > Options 1 and 2 are how most updates are done, the user can mask the > > latest version or upgrade. Option 3 allows the user to continue using the > > previous version while they decide to update to a portage version that > > supports the new EAPI. > > The current policy states that ebuilds should only be bumped if the > installed files change. Changing EAPI from 1 to 2 has no effect outside > the vdb so the current policy means developers should use option 3. > There was a bug in stable Portage when EAPI 2 went in the tree that made > Portage stack trace but that's a problem with Portage not with the > policy in general. > > > I would prefer that option 3 be made policy because I run several ~arch > > packages that either don't have a stable version (kradio) or have a > > feature that I need (gentoo-sources), and will not be pushed to stable > > immediately for various reasons from lack of maintainer time to everybody > > says it conflicts with major pieces of the system (Firefox 3, 64 bit > > netscape-flash, and xorg). > > Why should we prefer making it a little bit easier for stable users over > making ~arch users needlessly recompile stuff? > > Regards, > Petteri
My answer is a simple example from my own system. My current system uses a motherboard that is around 6 months old and is only correctly supported by the latest ~arch gentoo-sources. The add on video card, a 1 to 2 year old nvidia card, works great with x11-drivers/xf86-video-nv-2.1.12 as long as I am using the latest ~arch xorg-x11. The internal video card isn't even recognized by the xf86-video-intel drivers except the ~arch versions. Even some of the packages I use for school work such as kile have bugfixes and other improvements between the versions in stable and ~arch that are important to getting work done. The ability to selectively upgrade only the specific packages needed to get a working system is a major strength for Gentoo. Why should I have to run more packages from ~arch than I absolutely need to? We all know that upgrading more software than absolutely necessary will result in bad things happening to a computer. The easiest solution to the problem with ~arch having the only working versions of some packages is to get more of those packages stabilized. But, we all know that the manpower required simply doesn't exist.
