Re: [gentoo-dev] USE Flags

[Marius Mauch]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 23:21:39 +0100
Thomas de Grenier de Latour <degrenier@×××××××××××.fr> wrote:

> On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:01:18 +0100
> Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@g.o> wrote:
>
> > I'll add some nice tag to support this.
>
> I'm sorry to insist, but is there something wrong with using
> use.local.desc, as i've proposed in bug #84884? I don't understand
> the rational for choosing metadata.xml. In my opinion, it makes
> this detailed description less likely to be written (more
> complex syntax, whereas the one of .desc file is already
> well-known), and less likely to be read (lack of user tools
> whereas there are plently for use.local.desc, which would need at
> most small trivial changes, if any).
>
> Also, take the following scenario:
>
>  - use.local.desc has:
> "cat/pkgA:foo - adds support for libfoo as a replacement of \
> libbar. Do not enable it but if you really know what you do."
>
>  - then comes cat/pkgB, which also support libfoo:
> "cat/pkgB:foo - adds support for libfoo, for playing .foo files"
>
>  - And more packages start supporting libfoo, thus "foo" becomes
> a global flag:
> "foo - adds support for libfoo"
> With the "metadata.xml" approach, that will require moving the
> existing descriptions from use.local.desc to the various xml
> files.  At the contrary, with the "keep it in use.local.desc"
> approach, no additional work is required...
>
>
> So could someone explain me that choice?

Well, nothing has been finalised so far (no tool support for either
solution), and thinking about it we might even use both solutions:
use.local.desc for package-specific short descriptions (like at the
moment) and metadata.xml for longer detailed descriptions if required,
similar to <longdescription>.
Opinions?

Marius

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