Brian Harring wrote:

> Steve Long wrote:
>> Robert Buchholz wrote:
>> >> Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@...> said:
>> >> > "Robin H. Johnson" <robbat2@g.o> wrote:
>> >> > > Either we need special cases to declare that it no longer has a
>> >> > > homepage, or we need to allow the empty HOMEPAGE.

>> >> > HOMEPAGE="( )"
>> >> HOMEPAGE="http://this-package-has-no-homepage.gentoo.org/"
>> > Why not use our package site for this, i.e.
>> > HOMEPAGE="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/${CAT}/${PN}"

>> ++ This makes the most sense; it's simple and it enables users to
>> interact with the appropriate channels to get support, or file bugs and
>> patches.
>> 
>> If a notice is needed, the website can be amended to state explicitly
>> that upstream is dead (if the homepage points to self.)
> 
> Use a constant of some sort rather then having the ebuild hardcode the
> fallback- this shifts the fallback upto the PM (code rather then data
> it operates on) allowing far more flexibility.
>
Sure, so long as the end-user always sees:
"$GENTOO_PKG_URL/package/$CATEGORY/$PN" (or whatever the current schema is)
in the cli, it doesn't matter. The argument would be for someone reading an
ebuild, but I don't think that really matters, as by that time they'd have
got used to seeing the packages url, and it's a one-line comment in the
example file/docs to explain it.

If UNKNOWN or some other non-empty constant is chosen, it's a simple bug to
spot and fix for any externals that don't display it correctly. Have to say
I'd prefer simply allowing empty string in the tree, though. No i18n issue
and it's very well-understood/defined, and seems cleaner (less cruft too.)
Perhaps repoman could allow an empty homepage, but not an unset one?
 
> An example for why this is a better approach would be if I get really
> really bored some afternoon (or exceedingly drunk) and try to match
> the package back to a freshmeat url when the homepage is
> unknown/unset; using a constant, I can focus on that fun task.

That sounds more like a script-task to me. (plus it doesn't matter how
wasted you are;)

> Use a constant of some sort please, it's way saner from a data format
> standpoint.
>
Agreed.