[oe] Some open issues

[Koen Kooi]

On 18-10-2008 11:03, Richard Purdie wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> I have a few issues with the way certain things have happened recently.
>
> 1. The FILE_PR change.
>
> This was mentioned in an email on Wednesday with the title "[oe] [RFC]
> Enable --hash-style=both for all recent gcc4 targets" at 9am. At 8pm we
> have "I decided to land now as PRs are changing all the time and keeping
> up with things is pretty hard...". This is not in keeping with the major
> changes policy we agreed by any stretch of the imagination.
>
> This change breaks compatibility with everyone's overlays and creates
> the nightmare scenario of external OE "branches" being forced into the
> change or forever being unable to sync (Openmoko and Poky spring to
> mind).
>
> What is most annoying is that given a bit longer I think we could have
> done something that would have meant this was unnecessary, specifically
> inserted the revision into the package at package_*.bbclass time where
> we can manipulated PR as needed. This combined with a staging ABI change
> would have been all that was needed. If staging ABI isn't enough, we can
> insert the modified PR into STAMPS instead of the real PR or some other
> magic. My point is that there are better options than FILE_PR, it just
> needs some thought. The fact the testing branch had so many merge issues
> should have meant a better idea was sought, not that is should be
> committed ASAP.
>
> 2. The Git conversion including the BKCVS data.
>
> I'd made it quite clear this should have been a tree graft and this
> wasn't done so we're now stuck with broken history :(. This is pretty
> frustrating since I'd repeatedly said not to include it and went to the
> effort of gathering my conversion data and sending it to Jan who then
> didn't realise what I meant by graft (though no fault of his own).

I have no strong opinion on the BK stuff, but it would be nice to have 
the history in the same repo.

> 3. Merging Bitbake into OE
>
> People are saying things like "Might be a chance to reconsider
> maintaining BitBake in the OE repository.". Could people please talk to
> the bitbake maintainer about things like this *before* encouraging it in
> public. If we need a release lets make one (which seems to be the real
> problem).

I do have a strong opinion on that :) Bitbake should be kept out of the 
.dev branch. I can see how things like the new stable branch *might* 
include a copy, but let's cross that bridge when we get there.

> 4. Bitbake changes
>
> These should go to the bitbake list as well as the OE list and should be
> discussed. I've raised issues with patches which have been ignored and
> these patches have now just need committed. I'm not happy about the
> process that was used :(. I know people have various commitments but we
> need to try and stick to some kind of process for this kind of thing.

I know very little about bitbake and don't contribute to it, so no 
opinion there.

> Where from here?
>
> I'd actually like to a strong line on this and suggest we revert the
> FILE_PR change since its badly thought out and also that we consider
> redoing the git conversion ASAP and the replaying the recent commits
> before its too late to get rid of the corruption in there. This is
> probably going to have to go to a core team vote since its a pretty big
> change to suggest but opinions are welcome.

<distro hat> The most important thing is the in the end distros can have 
a way to increase a global PR</distro hat>

<oe hat>I agree with your proposal</oe hat>

regards,

Koen