Bug 488130 – news item 2013-09-27-initramfs-required utterly wrong

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description kavol 2013-10-15 15:53:02 UTC]

finally, I got to upgrading and I read that "Separate /usr on Linux requires initramfs"

setting aside flaming about the support being dropped, I find it quite unfortunate how do you inform about the change, and I believe that such thing should be communicated properly

if you talk about "upstream changes", you should name which "upstream" do you talk about, and explain the reasons why it is a must to stick to the upstream project that break things

if you say "it already breaks", you should add bug numbers to sound at least a bit credible

also linking http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken which has been criticized all around the Internet (e.g. http://lwn.net/Articles/527048/ to use first link from a quick Google) and parts of which are a plain lie looks very dishonest and offending in the way you treat users

hopefully you can come up with a better revision before you lose the trust of the rest of Gentoo users who were so lucky not to have it read yet ...

[Comment 1 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) 2013-10-15 15:58:18 UTC]

This is a bug tracker and not a forum. We will not discuss politics here.

[Comment 2 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) 2013-10-15 18:07:32 UTC]

That is a news message; clear information which makes users aware of changes is of much higher importance than argumentation, that's why it is short and concise.

"Upstream" and "breaks" are therefore kept general, there is no place for lengthy enumeration and pointing out the bad is not something they will want to focus on.

Almost everything on the internet gets criticized, they even get vetted and labeled as "truth" or "lie"; but if we go down that road, both opinions exist.

Consider why that systemd link is used and what the LWN article reflects; LWN vets it abut whether it "points out that it _is_ broken" but we rather use it to show that "things _might_ break and we simply can no longer ensure it works".

The devil is in the details.

These news messages are shaped on the gentoo-project ML if you have interest to discuss and help shape future news articles (and/or perhaps wiki articles to refer to that contain more detail and argumentation).

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

If you want to reply to me, feel free to mail me (hover my name for my address).

P.S.: I have no direct relation with the news item or the Gentoo Council; so, please interpret my words as coming from an individual. I do not intent to discuss this, but wanted to shed some light on why this may be the way it is.