[gentoo-dev] Why (i.e. USE="openssl" instead of USE="ssl")

[Peter Hjalmarsson]

This is about my beloved USE="ssl". A bit long and ranty, but if you
want the consensus, just read the last part.


Today a new snapshot of gnash was uploaded where the old USE="ssl" was
renamed to USE="openssl".

So yet another package where if you want ssl support you have to
_personally_ audit what function this useflag has (i.e. does it enable
ssl or tune the ssl implementation?).

So I wanted to figure it out, does gnash provide ssl itself and the
USE="openssl" only tunes how it is implemented or does USE="openssl"
enable ssl?

So what does the flag really do? Their local description does not say
very much:
local:openssl:www-plugins/gnash: Enable directly using OpenSSL

What is even "enabled directly"? Still not much smarter.
Unpacking the source and looking in ./configure --help and the strange
description for the use flag gets an explanation:
--enable-ssl            Enable using OpenSSL directly

Still not much smarter...

Looking inside configure.ac makes me smarter tho:

dnl Enable using OpenSSL with libnet.
AC_ARG_ENABLE(ssl,
  AC_HELP_STRING([--enable-ssl], [Enable using OpenSSL directly]),
[case "${enableval}" in
  yes) build_ssl=yes ;;
  no)  build_ssl=no ;;
  *)   AC_MSG_ERROR([bad value ${enableval} for --enable-ssl option]) ;;
esac], build_ssl=no)

So apparently it seems the flag enables ssl support using openssl.

No, I did not review the source to make sure that build_ssl does really
build ssl, but do I really have to to find out what a USE-flag does?

Personally I would still like the description for the useflag to really
describe the flag, like:
global:ssl: Adds support for Secure Socket Layer connections

(and thus in this case the use flag to still be USE="ssl")



And why I post here instead of making a bug is to try to start a
discussion that is still not finished[1]:
What function should useflags bring?

There are some packages (like networkmanager) that does not have a ssl
flag (it is always enabled), and the gnutls/nss useflags are used to
fine tune what implementation to use. If non selected the upstream
preferred (nss) is chosen.

Then there are some packages (like qemu) where there is only one flag
(USE="gnutls") that enables support for encrypten vnc.

Then there are packages like curl where the local description of
USE="ssl" says it all:
local:ssl:net-misc/curl: Enable crypto engine support (via openssl if
USE='-gnutls -nss')





So as a user, if I want to have Secure Socket Layer or Transport Layer
Security, do I really need to learn the name of every implementation
known to man and enable their respective use flag to ensure that my
whole system has support for it, or should I just have to enable
USE="ssl"?
And will I still be sure that those use flag did not disable a (maybe
superior or by maintainer preferred) internal ssl implementation?


[1] Last time I did a bugreport about this, here is the answer:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=310681


Regards
Peter Hjalmarsson