Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: new global USE flag "srcdist"

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@g.o> wrote:
>
> But Gentoo can't distribute MS Windows to you in the first place. Is
> there a package that Gentoo can distribute to you, but you can't
> redistribute within your organization?

Well, ACCEPT_LICENSE is about more than just whether a package is
USE=bindist. There is also nothing that prevents Portage from
conceptually installing something like Windows (this stuff isn't
limited to the main portage tree, and we have had proprietary software
in portage before (user had to provide their own distfiles)). However,
I would tend to think that any package with RESTRICT=mirror would have
potential legal concerns, since we obviously set it for a reason.  The
specifics of any particular package are of course going to vary.

>
> As I said in another reply, more license metadata is good and we should
> make it available. But a USE flag that changes the meaning of an
> important global variable is a little hacky, especially if it doesn't
> solve a real problem within Gentoo/Portage. If the problems are
> theoretical (or aren't Gentoo package management problems), maybe it's
> better to wait and do it right in an EAPI.

Well, the LICENSE that applied to the installed files for a package
could very well change due to USE flags (for example, a de-blobbed
kernel).  I don't think you're disputing that, and I do realize that
this is a bit more "virtual."

Rich