On 12/01/2012 09:48 PM, Duncan wrote: > Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn posted on Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:28:26 +0100 as > excerpted: > >> If this change is applied anyway, I suggest to at least produce a news >> item in order to not surprise users about the sudden loss of their >> openldap server. > > I wouldn't object to a news item. More information is good. > > <mode=rant> > > However, hasn't it always been gentoo policy to *STRONGLY* encourage > users to run emerge --pretend/--ask and EXAMINE THE RESULTS for anything > unexpected, and resolve it in one way or another to "expected", before > going ahead? > > Thus, anyone suddenly losing their openldap server as a result of a > simple uncaught USE flag change, "gets to keep the pieces", as the saying > commonly goes. Gentoo has /always/ been about reasonable documentation > but has /never/ been about handholding. We've never been afraid to point > users who expect to be handheld or babysat to other distributions that > are a more appropriate match to their expectations.
We should! This is just an excuse for shitty QA. These things have real consequences for real people. > So yes, a news item is reasonable as it's arguably part of that "good > documentation". But in general, there's something wrong if we're unduly > worrying about loss of functionality involving a USE flag change, or even > a simple USE flag default change, because equally as arguably, anyone not > catching such things with the --pretend/--ask they do BEFORE letting > things just run, and/or not following up accordingly, really should be > thinking about a distribution other than gentoo in the first place. > That's a fact that's not really practical to change at this point, both > because we haven't the manpower to do all the required handholding, and > because it would make gentoo into something it's not, and something it > was never intended to be. Paraphrasing Star Trek's Bones, that would be > "Gentoo, Jim, but not as we know it." > > </mode> > I beat my wife, is it her fault she gets beaten for choosing to be with me? Don't blame the victim. Handholding != making an effort not to screw up people's systems. Even with emerge --pretend, all I'm going to see is that the minimal flag switched from off to on by default. Which I'll interpret as meaning, "the minimal flag was changed so that openldap[minimal] today means what openldap[-minimal] did yesterday." Someone's going to reboot three months after this change and their whole office is going to be down while they try to figure out why they don't have an LDAP server. For even a small business, that could mean thousands of dollars. "Ha ha, you shouldn't have trusted me!" is not the appropriate response.
