Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Steve Long <slong@××××××××××××××××××.uk>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Projects without a homepage, and valid contents of HOMEPAGE (per bug 239268)
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:35:46
Message-Id: gcj20m$9v5$1@ger.gmane.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Projects without a homepage, and valid contents of HOMEPAGE (per bug 239268) by Brian Harring
1 Brian Harring wrote:
2
3 > Steve Long wrote:
4 >> Robert Buchholz wrote:
5 >> >> Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@××××××××××.com> said:
6 >> >> > "Robin H. Johnson" <robbat2@g.o> wrote:
7 >> >> > > Either we need special cases to declare that it no longer has a
8 >> >> > > homepage, or we need to allow the empty HOMEPAGE.
9
10 >> >> > HOMEPAGE="( )"
11 >> >> HOMEPAGE="http://this-package-has-no-homepage.gentoo.org/"
12 >> > Why not use our package site for this, i.e.
13 >> > HOMEPAGE="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/${CAT}/${PN}"
14
15 >> ++ This makes the most sense; it's simple and it enables users to
16 >> interact with the appropriate channels to get support, or file bugs and
17 >> patches.
18 >>
19 >> If a notice is needed, the website can be amended to state explicitly
20 >> that upstream is dead (if the homepage points to self.)
21 >
22 > Use a constant of some sort rather then having the ebuild hardcode the
23 > fallback- this shifts the fallback upto the PM (code rather then data
24 > it operates on) allowing far more flexibility.
25 >
26 Sure, so long as the end-user always sees:
27 "$GENTOO_PKG_URL/package/$CATEGORY/$PN" (or whatever the current schema is)
28 in the cli, it doesn't matter. The argument would be for someone reading an
29 ebuild, but I don't think that really matters, as by that time they'd have
30 got used to seeing the packages url, and it's a one-line comment in the
31 example file/docs to explain it.
32
33 If UNKNOWN or some other non-empty constant is chosen, it's a simple bug to
34 spot and fix for any externals that don't display it correctly. Have to say
35 I'd prefer simply allowing empty string in the tree, though. No i18n issue
36 and it's very well-understood/defined, and seems cleaner (less cruft too.)
37 Perhaps repoman could allow an empty homepage, but not an unset one?
38
39 > An example for why this is a better approach would be if I get really
40 > really bored some afternoon (or exceedingly drunk) and try to match
41 > the package back to a freshmeat url when the homepage is
42 > unknown/unset; using a constant, I can focus on that fun task.
43
44 That sounds more like a script-task to me. (plus it doesn't matter how
45 wasted you are;)
46
47 > Use a constant of some sort please, it's way saner from a data format
48 > standpoint.
49 >
50 Agreed.