Re: Question about -dev thread "Introduction of app-alternatives/coreutils"

I also followed the discussion on gentoo-dev (and was very surprised that a 
contributor would dare to call @ulm the devil's advocate).

@dale:
Thank you very much for asking the questions there that I also had. I also 
think it’s great that you switched to this mailing list (I’m just a user 
myself and have only posted there once).

@Ionen:
I’m thrilled by your discussion on gentoo-dev AND your support here in gentoo-
user, and thank you very much.

@all:
My thoughts as an active user on the Gentoo Forum:

a) Many users are aware of the importance of coreutils and would be surprised 
if a world-update suddenly required a re-emerge of them. The cautious ones 
would certainly ask in our support channels (IRC, Forum, ML, Discord) 
beforehand if no news explains it to them.

Am Dienstag, 24. März 2026, 08:13:41 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit schrieb 
Ionen Wolkens:
 
> In theory it *shouldn't* cause problems but there can be edge cases
> depending on how users are using the package, and it was debated
> whether the news item is needed or not "just in case". The average
> user would likely be entirely unaffected beside possibly being
> surprised by the changes and wondering what happened without a news
> item.

b) If there can be edge cases, then there will be some; even if there are only 
a few. However, they might rightly be angry at not having been informed 
beforehand.

c) In my opinion, the news doesn’t need to be very extensive - in bullet 
points, I see the following requirements:
- The next world-update will re-emerge coreutils.
- This is necessary because there is now a new package, uu-coreutils.
- No action is required if you do not need or want the new package.
- However, problems could arise in rare cases; in that case, please read this 
wiki article: LINK
- If you want to switch to uu-coreutils, you will find instructions in the same 
wiki article.

By the way: 
I find this contributor’s attitude concerning:

"Maybe someone will create a uutils wiki page or a forum post. That doesn’t 
feel too important to me; I just want the feature to exist, and interested 
users will find it",

because: A forum post wouldn’t reach all Gentoo users; a Wiki article 
*without* news might not be found.

--- Peter aka pietinger