Gentoo Overlays Policy

1.  Introduction

Here are the policies for the overlays.g.o service. If you host an overlay on (git.)overlays.g.o, or if you participate in the administration those, you must follow these policies.

2.  What Is The Gentoo Overlays Service?

Gentoo Overlays provides a social workspace, for Gentoo projects and developers to publish their Gentoo package overlays in one location, where it's easy for devs and non-devs alike to collaborate.

3.  Types Of Overlay

overlays.g.o hosts two types of overlay:

• overlays for Gentoo project teams
• overlays for individual Gentoo developers
• overlays for Gentoo summer of code projects
• overlays for other Gentoo-specific projects that are external

Project Overlays

"Project overlays" are overlays owned by recognised Gentoo project teams. Such teams are required to meet the definition of a project that you can find in our metastructure document.

"Project overlays" will have the same or start with the name as the Gentoo project team. Each project is only allowed a single overlay.

Project overlays are owned by the elected lead(s) of the project.

Developer Overlays

"Developer overlays" are overlays owned by official Gentoo developers.

Each "developer overlay" will have the same name as the developer who owns the overlay. Each developer is only allowed a single overlay.

Developer overlays are owned by the individual Gentoo developer who asked for the overlay to be hosted.

Summer of Code Overlays

"Summer of Code overlays" are overlays that were created for the express purpose of hosting the development of a Google Summer of Code (SoC) project for Gentoo.

Each "SoC overlay" will be named for the SoC project. Multiple overlays may exist if required by the project.

SoC overlays are owned by the SoC student and his mentoring developer.

External Gentoo-specific overlays

"External Gentoo-specific overlays" are overlays for Projects contributing to Gentoo as Non-developers yet providing key parts for Gentoo.

The overlay is owned by the External Entity as well as the Gentoo Involved party requesting this overlay

4.  Responsibilities

1. Infrastructure Team is responsible for the platform (hardware + o/s) that (git.)overlays.g.o is hosted on.
2. The overlays project team is responsible for administering the (git.)overlays.g.o service, including responsibility for the software used to deliver the service (e.g. svn, trac, git, gitweb).
3. Overlay owners are responsible for the contents of their overlays, and for the conduct of anyone who has commit access to their overlays.
4. Any individual committing to an overlay is responsible for his/her own actions.

5.  Creating Overlays

Overlays are created at the request of whoever will be the owner of the overlay.

Overlays are optional; no Gentoo developer or project team is required to setup an overlay.

Gentoo developers are free to host their overlays somewhere else.

6.  Commit Access To Overlays

Definitions:

• A "developer" is someone who has commit access to the main Gentoo package tree. (Commonly called "Ebuild-dev")
• A non-developer is anyone who doesn't have commit access to the main Gentoo package tree. That includes other members of Gentoo staff.

Project overlays:

• Any developer listed on a team's project page can have commit access to that team's overlay(s). Just ask the overlays admin team to sort you out with access.
• Any dev not listed on a team's project page can have commit access, with the agreement of a member of the project team.
• Any non-dev can have commit access to a team's overlay(s). The request for access has to come from the owner of the overlay.

Developer overlays:

• Any Gentoo dev can ask for commit access, with the agreement of the overlay's owner.
• Any non-dev can have commit access to a developer's overlay. The request for access has to come from the developer owning the overlay.

SoC overlays:

• The SoC student mentor and student will be provided with write access to the overlay.
• Any non-dev can have commit access to a SoC overlay. The request for access must come from either the SoC student or his mentor.

External overlays:

• Any (non-)dev can have commit access to an external overlay. The request has to come from either the external entity or the corresponding gentoo people

Common Requirements For Non-Devs

• The non-dev is required to have registered their nick on Freenode IRC first, and must provide a valid email address for our records.
• If you're a non-dev, please don't ask the overlays team directly for access, as refusal often offends.

7.  General Rules For Overlays

We're deliberately trying to keep the rules on overlays to a minimum. Please, don't abuse the service, and force us to add more rules

What You Can And Cannot Store On (git.)overlays.g.o

(git.)overlays.g.o is for hosting package trees, their patchsets and any docs that have nowhere else to be hosted. Exceptions are at the discretion of the overlays admins and the council.

Overlays Are Public

There are no "secret" overlays.

All overlays are listed on the frontpage of overlays.g.o, and anyone is free to download the contents of an overlay.

Bug Tracking

The Gentoo Bugtracker is the OneTrueBugTrackingSystem(tm), even for overlays.

Moving Contributions From Overlays To The Portage Tree

Don't set up anything to automatically commit the contents of an overlay to the main Gentoo package tree. Ever.

Any code you take from an overlay and commit to the main Gentoo package tree needs to be thoroughly reviewed first. As the person committing the code to the main tree, it's your responsibility to ensure that the code meets the required standards.

8.  Administration Of Overlays

Only the (git.)overlays.g.o administration team (listed on the overlays project page) have shell access into the box. Account management (including resetting passwords) has to be done through the overlays administration team.

If you need anything doing to your overlay (adding/removing a user f.ex), please ask in #gentoo-overlays, and someone will help you as soon as possible.

9.  Removal Of Overlays

Overlays can be removed at the discretion of the overlays administration team. Except for exceptional circumstances, we'll only remove overlays for the following reasons:

• Project overlays will be removed if the project closes down.
• Switch between VCS.
• Overlays contents has been moved to the main tree.
• Developer overlays will be removed when its owner retires.

Exceptional circumstances may include:

• Complaints from other developers about the contents of an overlay causing problems for packages in the main tree.
• Complaints from other developers about the contents of an overlay creating a security risk to our users.

All other exceptional circumstances will be discussed on gentoo-dev or with the gentoo council before action is taken.

10.  Restrictions On New Software

We're always willing to listen to requests for different software we could offer as part of the service. Please bear in mind that we need to keep the amount of software offered to a minimum, to reduce the workload on the overlays administration team.

Any new software added to the service will have to meet the following requirements *as a minimum*. Please don't ask for a piece of software unless you've checked and made sure it meets these requirements.

• There must be a working package for the software in Portage.
• The package must have an active maintainer.
• The package must have a "credible" security history. In particular, packages that need regular updating to fix security holes are likely to be rejected.
• If the package provides a bug-tracking system, it must be possible to disable the bug-tracking system.

The only access to overlays.g.o is via these two mechanisms:

1. read SVN/HTTP/HTTPS for Subversion overlays
2. write HTTPS for Subversion overlays
3. SSH to Gitosis for Git overlays

The security mechanism for overlays.g.o is via HTTP basic auth, over SSL

A package can have finer-grained control via its own security mechanisms (e.g. trac's permissions list), but the package must be compatible with these access and security restrictions.

11.  Errors And Omissions

If you find a fault with this policy, please file a bug on bugs.g.o, and assign it to overlays@gentoo.org.

All policy changes will first be posted to gentoo-dev for discussion.

The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.