[gentoo-dev] Guidelines for dangerous USE flags

[Michael Orlitzky]

The net-analyzer/nrpe package has a ./configure flag:

--enable-command-args   allows clients to specify command arguments. ***
                        THIS IS A SECURITY RISK! *** Read the SECURITY
                        file before using this option!

Back in nrpe-2.x, it was available via USE=command-args, but I dropped
it from nrpe-3.x, and a user just asked about it (bug 628596). There are
at least two things we could do with a dangerous flag like that:

  1) require EXTRA_ECONF to enable it.
  2) hide it behind a masked USE flag.

Both options require about the same amount of work from the user, namely
editing something under /etc/portage. What do y'all think is the best
way to proceed? Are there other examples in the tree I could follow?