On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Thomas Sachau <to...@gentoo.org> wrote: > 1. Who defines, what the default should be and when it is acceptable to force > an unknown amount of > users to change their settings?
Well, this did go on a mailing list, and so far we have all of 13 unique participants, so this seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot considering that the change is trivial to undo. I'll admit that it is pretty subjective either way, and that is just more of a reason not to turn it into a huge controversy. Users who would be most sensitive to changes won't even see this until it hits stable (if you don't like change, you shouldn't be running ~arch). This is actually the sort of thing that might make for a good news item (hey, we have a new setting and if you don't like it just do this...). Ultimately I think that it is up to the team maintaining a particular component of the distro to make initial determinations of how that component should behave, of course consulting with the list about things likely to be of wide interest is always good but this was done in this case. If people want to appeal there is always making an appeal to the team lead, and then to the Council. There should be no reprimands or stigma associated with having a decision reversed by the Council - people shouldn't have to second-guess minor decisions like this. I don't think it serves Gentoo to call for a vote (council, devs, or otherwise) every time somebody wants to change the portage defaults, especially regarding matters that are cosmetic. Rich
