Stephen Bennett wrote:
> Continuing in the series of issues raised during the previous package
> manager discussions, I'd like to continue by mentioning the tree
> format. At present, it isn't defined beyond "what the current portage
> supports", which is frankly a fairly silly way to do things. Following
> discussion in #gentoo-portage, I'd like to set out to change that.
>
> My current idea is to draw up a formal specification of what ebuilds
> are allowed to do, and what to assume about the environment in which
> they run, as well as defining the formats of everything under
> profiles/, metadata.xml files, and other auxiliary information in the
> tree. I would envision the first version of this document to more or
> less codify existing practise, perhaps excluding some dubious tricks
> that are known to break in some cases. Generally, it should be possible
> to make the tree conform to the first version of the specification by
> changes no more significant than currently have QA bugs filed for them.
>
> It seems fairly obvious that any effort of this kind could potentially
> have implications, albeit hopefully very minor, across more or less all
> aspects of the tree, and so I'd like to seek as wide a range of input
> as possible before going ahead with it. The QA and Portage teams, based
> on my enquiries in IRC, seem broadly in favour, and I would imagine
> that this could be very helpful to Gentoo/ALT as well, so I'd like
> opinions from others at this point. Would you support such an effort,
> whether passively or actively? Would you oppose it? If so, why? Final
> implementation of it would I assume require the Council's approval;
> while I won't ask at this stage for a formal discussion I'd appreciate
> the views of its members on whether such an initiative is likely to
> pass.
>
> Any input is gratefully received.
>
I like the idea. This would be some kind of portage-tree standard?
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