DMD in Gentoo

[Brad Roberts]

Anant Narayanan wrote:
> Brad Roberts wrote:
>> Great.  The announcement that it's for a specific version is what
>> tweaked my concern as it's a key aspect of why Walter doesn't allow
>> redistribution.  He wants users to always get the latest release, not
>> have old releases living in the wild.  Does this package seek to always
>> get the most recent version or is it hard coded at those versions?
> 
> Unfortunately, our QA policy does not allow such fetching (since the latest
> version may be broken, which is inconvenient for our users). Any new releases
> require a new ebuild to be written which guarantees that it works - the build
> system is not always the same across releases.
> 
> However, Gentoo is one of the distributions known for its '0-day releases', as
> updates to the tree happen very frequently. There shouldn't be a gap of more than
>  7 days between a new upstream release and a downstream ebuild.
> 
> Best Regards,
> --
> Anant Narayanan
> http://www.kix.in/
> 
> gpg --recv-keys 0EF6914E
> <anant at kix.in,gentoo.org,php.net>

While I really don't want to play Walter's parrot on this issue since 
I'm not sure I agree with it, but by having a fixed version downloader, 
the spirit of the problem is the same.  You're providing a package that 
must be separately maintained or users will get an outdated version. 
That it _can_ be kept up to date is no guarantee that it will, or will 
be on a timely basis.

Additionally, who is this 'our' that you refer to?  Are you speaking on 
behalf of Gentoo, some other company, the D community?  The attribution 
is unclear.

At this point, I'm going to step out of the debate and if Walter chooses 
to enforce his redistribution policy that's his call.

Later,
Brad