Re: [RFC] Defaulting desktop profiles to net-nds/openldap[minimal]

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.

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>

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman