Re: [gentoo-desktop] Re: Proposal: Split kde use flag into kde3 and kde4

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Duncan wrote:
> Tomáš Chvátal <scarabeus@g.o> posted
> 200904271103.08247.scarabeus@g.o, excerpted below, on  Mon, 27 Apr
> 2009 11:03:08 +0200:
>
>> Dne pondělí 27 Duben 2009 10:59:46 Jan Kundrát napsal(a):
>>> Tomáš Chvátal wrote:
>>>> Dne pondělí 27 Duben 2009 10:45:49 Alexey Shvetsov napsal(a):
>>>>> 	Hi all!
>>>>> I think its better to split kde use flag into 2 new use flags kde3
>>>>> and kde4 so it will not confuse users =)
>>>> As we spoke earlier with others on irc: kde3 stuff = kde3 useflag
>>>> kde4 stuff (or any newest kde which is around) = kde useflag where if
>>>> kde4 gets outdated it will get kde4 useflag.
>>> Is there any single package that supports both KDE3 and KDE4?
>> Some are,
>> The issue is currently that user globaly enable kde and now with for
>> example subversion he gets pulled kde4.
>
> Before the discussion goes too far, please please either go back and
> check the dev-list archives or talk to some of the devs that have been
> around for awhile.  It's relatively easy to both confuse users and make
> further version changes MUCH more difficult than they need to be, and
> looking thru the archives will provide much material on all the angst
> that previous policies generated by not getting it right.

Duncan,

although I'm not that "old", I've been around for a while now.
As I've said to Theo and Thomas before, we should use the kde use flag
for general KDE support - if an app supports more than one version, we
should enable the support for the latest version. We should use
kde-<major-version> for choosing a specific version.
I understand a "sliding" version use flag might be confusing for users
(at one point kde would mean KDE-3.*, later KDE-4 and one day KDE-6),
but I think it has some advantages as it allows users to have packages
with KDE support (even when they work against newer versions) just by
keep using the same use flag and won't have to update it from kde3, to
kde4, ... kdeN. One important point here is that the kde* use flags are
used by packages outside of kde-base/*, so that doesn't affect directly
the KDE version the user is running - the "kdeprefix" use flag is for
the time being our answer to the concern about being able to have more
than one KDE version around (which might be required for packages that
don't work with the latest version - k3b anyone?)

> In particular, don't make the mistake gtk/gtk2 did for awhile.  USE=gtk
> indicated a general desire to have gtk (of any version) support, while
> USE=gtk2 indicated that gtk2 should be favored over gtk1, otherwise, gtk1
> was the default.  That policy, which looked quite reasonable when gtk2
> was new and experimental, ended up boxing them into a corner as gtk2
> improved and became the dominant version, while gtk1 grew stale and was
> eventually deprecated in the Gentoo tree and later masked and ultimately
> removed (along with any packages, xmms being one of the most popular,
> that hadn't upgraded to gtk2 by then), and they ultimately ended up
> changing it in a way that couldn't be anything /but/ rough for some users.
>
> But even before that it was a pain, because it didn't follow the
> intuitive idea that USE=gtk meant gtk1 support while USE=gtk2 meant gtk2
> support.  New users very often enabled gtk2 without enabling gtk,
> believing they were expressing a desire for gtk2 support but NOT gtk1,
> when instead what it was really expressing was, don't support gtk (of any
> version) unless you have to, but if it's mandatory and there's a choice,
> choose gtk2 over gtk1.
>
> Unfortunately there's few if any Gentoo/KDE devs remaining around from
> that time.  I'm not sure about Gentoo/GNOME or Gentoo/GTK.  However, note
> that such USE flag changes will be global in any case due to their
> popularity, and thus should be discussed on the dev list and if I'm not
> mistaken, run by council.  I'm not sure about the others, but Donnie was
> certainly around at the time, and is on council so his opinion will
> certainly matter in any case.  It's thus worth getting his input and
> those of any others that ware around then to remember, as it could well
> prevent some needless palm-to-forehead, "how could they have done that
> /again/ sometime in the future.

The use flags for KDE apps are in the end the responsibility of the KDE
team. However, we do want and value other inputs and will mail the dev
ml before doing any changes. Just to be clear, this does not require any
 "vote by" or "approval from" the council.


- --
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / SPARC / KDE
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