Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o>, gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] useflag policies
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2015 19:21:58
Message-Id: 20150802212132.17d253e5@pomiocik
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] useflag policies by Andrew Savchenko
1 Dnia 2015-08-02, o godz. 21:50:25
2 Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o> napisał(a):
3
4 > On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 20:35:27 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
5 > > Dnia 2015-08-02, o godz. 21:21:03
6 > > Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o> napisał(a):
7 > >
8 > > > On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 19:27:02 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
9 > > > > Long story short, this is USE=gtk once again. GNOME team had a
10 > > > > policy that handled the case cleanly and QA outvoted it in favor of
11 > > > > Qt-like policy. Then Qt team figured out their policy was unfriendly,
12 > > > > and 'fixed' it with this ugly hack...
13 > > > >
14 > > > > As I see it, this is a major failure of using toolkit-version oriented
15 > > > > flags rather than feature-oriented flags. Possibilities compared:
16 > > > >
17 > > > > USE='qt4 qt5' without ^^ is easy to set since it is free of REQUIRED_USE
18 > > > > issues. However, it's ugly: USE='qt4 qt5' may now mean either both
19 > > > > toolkits or one of them. In the latter case, we have two flag
20 > > > > combinations (= two different binary packages) that mean the same.
21 > > > > Additionally, USE='-qt4 -qt5' may mean both none of them or one of
22 > > > > them. If the latter, yet another case of redundant binary package.
23 > > > >
24 > > > > USE='qt4 qt5' with ^^/?? is cleaner from user perspective and better
25 > > > > for binary packages. However, it may mean that user will have to
26 > > > > randomly adjust flags per-package. Which may end up sucking even more
27 > > > > with new Qt versions being introduced and package.use being full of
28 > > > > random '-qt4' and stuff.
29 > > > >
30 > > > > What would be really clean is USE='qt qt5' (or 'qt qt4'), alike GNOME
31 > > > > team policy. USE=qt would mean 'any version of Qt, if optional', and
32 > > > > qt4/qt5 would be used to switch between Qt4/Qt5. If Qt would be
33 > > > > obligatory, no USE=qt would apply. If only one Qt version would be
34 > > > > supported, no USE=qt4/qt5 would apply. Clean, sane and limited
35 > > > > package.use cruft.
36 > > >
37 > > > This is a clean solution for developers and maintainers, but not
38 > > > for ordinary users — they will confused by "qt qt4 qt5": "what is
39 > > > 'qt', how is it different from 'qt4' and 'qt5'.
40 > >
41 > > This can be easily fixed via USE flag descriptions. And unlike with
42 > > your solution, the descriptions can be globally consistent.
43 > >
44 > > > What you are really
45 > > > doing is implementing second-level USE flags, while they were
46 > > > supposed to be linear.
47 > >
48 > > Please support such claims with references.
49 >
50 > A reference from your previous e-mail:
51 > > > On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 19:27:02 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
52 > [...]
53 > > > > What would be really clean is USE='qt qt5' (or 'qt qt4'), alike GNOME
54 > > > > team policy. USE=qt would mean 'any version of Qt, if optional', and
55 > > > > qt4/qt5 would be used to switch between Qt4/Qt5. If Qt would be
56 > > > > obligatory, no USE=qt would apply. If only one Qt version would be
57 > > > > supported, no USE=qt4/qt5 would apply. Clean, sane and limited
58 > > > > package.use cruft.
59 >
60 > You're proposing "qt" as a top level USE flag, while "qt4/qt5" will
61 > be in your opinion optional clarifying USE flags. This way we have
62 > second-level hierarchy.
63
64 I meant the claim that USE flags are supposed to be linear.
65
66 --
67 Best regards,
68 Michał Górny