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GLEP 70: Addition of distribution environment variables

Author A. Wilcox <[email protected]>
Type Standards Track
Status Deferred
Version 1
Created 2016-12-15
Last modified 2017-10-13
Posting history
GLEP source glep-0070.rst

Status

No progress made for over 60 days. Marked deferred by GLEP editor Michał Górny on 2017-10-13.

Abstract

This GLEP outlines an addition of environment variables to a future EAPI that specify the name of the distribution an ebuild has been compiled for, and the URL used to file bugs against that distribution. It additionally describes the route for their more immediate addition to the Gentoo package tree.

Motivation

Background

The Gentoo package repository is used not only by thousands of users, but also used by other distributions and organisations, such as Funtoo, CoreOS, and Google ChromeOS. From the Gentoo Foundation's own charter, it self-describes in the following way: "Gentoo is a metadistribution". That allows users to make their own flavours of Gentoo themselves. Several forks already exist, including Exherbo, Funtoo, Sabayon, Galapagos, Vida, and Calculate. Google also maintains a fork, ChromeOS, for their Chromebook laptops. CoreOS also uses Gentoo's repository for their distribution. In addition, there are also binary distributions such as Pentoo and Adélie that provide additional value but are not, in so many words, a 'fork' of Gentoo.

Current Situation

Currently, forks and derivatives of Gentoo are required to choose one of only two options. They can either use the tree as is, which causes packages to identify as being built for Gentoo and causes most autoconf-based packages (and some CMake packages in KDE) to have their bug report URLs to point to bugs.g.o. Alternatively, they can fork the Git repository, requiring the need of manual merges when conflicts arise, and additional wasted effort when upstreams release new versions of software.

Deficiencies

If a fork/derivative of Gentoo does not have the manpower or resources to modify and maintain all ebuilds that mention the Gentoo name and bug URL (rough estimate of 1,656 occurrences across 496 ebuilds), then both distributions suffer. Users of the fork will file bugs with Gentoo that are not bugs in Gentoo. Developers of the fork will not know about said bugs, and be unable to fix them. Gentoo bug-wranglers and devs will have to waste time and resources testing bugs, finding out they are not even Gentoo bugs, and closing them as WONTFIX or WORKSFORME.

If they choose the alternative of forking the repository and changing these parameters in ebuilds, then it makes upstreaming their improvements much more difficult. Sabayon has a repository on GitHub specifically for this, and Adélie wastes continual effort applying patches against the tree as it evolves.

Solution Objectives

  • Protect Gentoo's name, trademark, and reputation by avoiding any appearance that derivative distributions are associated with Gentoo.
  • Lessen number of inappropriate bugs filed on bugs.g.o due to forks and derivatives.
  • Foster better collaboration and sharing of improvements between Gentoo and its forks/derivatives.
  • Future potential changes to the bug report URL, while exceedingly unlikely, is additionally made easier.

Specification

The following variables shall be added to Gentoo's base profile:

  • ${DISTRO}: The name of the distribution. This would be set to "Gentoo" on Gentoo.
  • ${DISTRO_BUG_URL}: The URL used to report bugs with software on the distribution. This would be set to "https://bugs.gentoo.org/" on Gentoo.

Rationale

By replacing references to 'Gentoo' passed to ./configure, make, etc with ${DISTRO}, distributions like Sabayon, Calculate, and Adélie will be able to notate their name as the distributor on packages. This will affect packages such as LibreOffice, OpenRC, X.Org, and KDE, which are all compiled with the name of the distribution internally. They use this for bug information, and having the proper distribution name will allow for more proper bug handling and ensure less inappropriate blame is assigned to Gentoo. This also ensures that the fork or derivative's own mailing lists, forums, and so on are searched and contacted before Gentoo's.

By replacing references to 'bugs.gentoo.org' passed to ./configure with ${DISTRO_BUG_URL}, it is believed the Gentoo project will have a significant reduction in wasted effort handling inappropriately filed bugs when the issues are caused by changes by the forks and derivatives.

Backward Compatibility

Since the variables will be added to the base profile, there should be no impact to existing sites and installations. The base profile would be changed before any ebuilds, so it would not be possible to have ${DISTRO} or ${DISTRO_BUG_URL} empty.

Reference Implementation

A reference implementation is currently available on GitHub [1].