Re: [gentoo-dev] Make logrotate a global USE flag?

[Donnie Berkholz]

Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:58:52 -0800
> Donnie Berkholz <spyderous@g.o> wrote:
>
>> You want people to recompile the whole package to get another
>> text file installed?
>
> When would one recompile a package just for that? Only case i can
> think of is when someone who already has setup his apache / ftp /
> database / whatever server suddenly discover what "logrotate" is
> and thus decide to start using it, whereas until then he didn't
> payed any attention to the flag each time it was listed by "emerge
> -pv".  That sounds rather unlikely, and i would say "too bad, be
> more careful next time..." to such a sysadmin.

Oh, that's really friendly. Too bad, so sad, you just have to spend 10
hours recompiling all your logrotate-using packages.

> And anyway, this
> user doesn't really have to recompile anything to fix his mistake:
> he can still have a look on the ebuild to see that if the file he
> is missing is available in $FILESDIR, or use "ebuild unpack" and
> get it from the sources tree when it comes from upstream.

I don't expect users to know ebuild syntax to install a package. That's
a terrible assumption to make.

If it's something in filesdir and you really insist on a USE flag, my
preference would be that it's a separate package pulled in by a USE flag
instead of requiring a recompilation.

>> People who don't want it can set INSTALL_MASK. It should be
>> installed by default and not switchable with a USE flag.
>
> USE flag is the only way to indicate that a package has logrotate
> support, and that's important. Remember that files added to an
> /etc/something.d/ directory are chunks of configuration merged
> with the user's one. First time they are installed, they are just
> like bypassing the etc-update protection.
> I remember that, maybe 2 years ago, syslog-ng suddenly started to
> install a logrotate.d file, with no USE flag. Sure i didn't
> noticed it, until i saw that what i had already configured by hand
> in a different file was not working has expected anymore. Ok,
> that's just logs rotation, it doesn't hurt that much, but still, i
> would have prefer it to be introduced along with a USE flag, so
> that i can notice the change and decide whether i accept it and
> adapt my configuration.

And any other "new" file in /etc you also want a USE flag introduced
for? Sounds real scalable. Or is this just an exception from the rule?

Thanks,
Donnie