Daniel Ostrow wrote:
On Mon, 2006-06-12 at 19:04 -0400, Luis Francisco Araujo wrote:
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?
It's been one of the missing cornerstones of the whole equation. Lets
get it done and get it done right.
One thing I do ask...Lets all start now getting used to calling the
"portage tree" something different. I'm all for terms like "the tree" or
"the ebuild tree" or "the package tree" but at this point, given the
prompting subject matter, the idea of it being a tree which belongs to
portage seems outdated. This may seem like a small thing (like the teams
vs. herds argument that has been brought up countless times before) but
it is the silly little things like this that really do lower the mental
bar for new and exciting things to happen.
I prefer gentoo-x86, although others hate that x86-centric moniker ;)
Thanks,
--Dan
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
