Project:Quality Assurance/Policies

General Notes

 * In the case that a feature of an ebuild violates policy but the QA team has reviewed the situation and given an exception, this should be noted in a comment in the ebuild

USE-Controlled Optional RDEPENDs
We do not have a specific recommendation for how to notify the user of optional dependencies (elogs and readme.gentoo are both viable options), but USE-controlled optional RDEPs are not acceptable except under very specific circumstances, such as a package being nonfunctional unless at least one of a set of RDEPs is installed. If in doubt, ask the QA team to review the situation.

Dropping Stable KEYWORDs
The maintainer may drop stable keyword or last stable version (following normal ebuild removal policy), if arch team does not respond within 90 days; if it breaks the dependency tree, then the maintainer has to work with maintainers of depending packages before dropping keyword/last stable version.

Policymaking Workflow
When a person brings us problem, we look into the problem and discuss it at meeting. If there is no policy on problem, we make policy; if the policy or documentation is unclear, we update it. If the policy is actively being ignored we politely ask the person to stop. It is more reactive than proactive, this does not preclude emergency action on our part. This will give the team the time to work out basic rules and workflows, we might do more proactive tasks later one, if there is any need for them. However, if we think somebody is breaking the tree, we can ask them to stop and/or undo what they did pending a review at a QA meeting.

Communicating New Policy
Emailing gentoo-dev@ and gentoo-dev-announce@ and updating this wiki page are the minimum for announcing new policies. Blog posts are also encouraged.

Communication When Making Fixes
We fix and send a friendly reminder to the maintainer(s) for trivial fixes; open bug, wait 2 weeks, make the change for larger but non-critical fixes; make the change and send a notification for critical fixes.