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Hi everyone,

I'd like you all to consider a PROPERTIES=virtual setting that
allows an ebuild to indicate that it installs no files and serves
only as a layer of dependency indirection. This will be another use
for the new PROPERTIES metadata variable that's already been
proposed to be added to the set of variables distributed via
${PORTDIR}/metadata/cache/ as part of the implementation of
PROPERTIES=live-sources [1].

The PROPERTIES=virtual attribute is useful as a means to indicate
that a package costs practically nothing to install. This knowledge
plays a vital role in distinguishing the most optimal state, when
deciding which packages should be chosen to satisfy the dependencies
of a virtual. Knowledge of this property is what allows bug #141118
[2] to be solved.

In the past it was possible to infer the property represented by
PROPERTIES=virtual from the fact that a package was in the virtual
category [3]. However, a java-virtuals category [4] has since been
added. Also, we have some other meta-packages like kde-*-meta or
whatnot that could legitimately advertise this attribute.

Does this seem like a desirable way to represent the "virtual"
attribute? Any suggestions?

Zac

[1]
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_187585c5d49b69034183719ff473710d.xml
[2] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141118
[3] http://packages.gentoo.org/category/virtual
[4] http://packages.gentoo.org/category/java-virtuals
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