Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-core] [treequake] virtual/mysql addition

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Thu, Nov 23, 2006 at 08:12:01AM -0800, Mike Doty wrote:
> Francesco Riosa wrote:
> >After irc conversation also "dev-db/mysql-client" will NOT be added, we
> >stick with USE="minimal". The default for the "virtual/mysql" will be
> >"dev-db/mysql-community"
> D'oh, I would have liked to have a separate package for the client...
>
> Can we switch from +-minimal indicating client and/or server and switch
> to something more sensible like client and server use flags?  The use of
>  the minimal flag here isn't very intuitive.  Another possibility is +-
> server(opposite of minimal use flag now)
The entire USE=server/client debate has come up before, and to recap on
the previous debate (this is not meant to reopen the debate):

- separate -client/-server packages are not the way of Gentoo (where we
  try to stick to 1 upstream package being 1 gentoo package), and
  pollute the tree badly.
- USE=server/client/minimal poses problem when it comes to dealing with
  dependencies that require the server or the client. The best that is
  doable with the present portage is checking that the app is compiled
  with the right use flags during pkg_setup, which can break long
  compiles.
- The conclusion that was reached previously, is that USE=server/client
  would be waiting for *DEPEND to enable saying what USE flags you
  needed on other packages. At that point, server and client would be
  placed into the default USE flags for all profiles, and packages
  converted.
- Until then, USE=minimal was seen as suitable for most apps that have a
  large server portion that people wished to exclude. MySQL and OpenLDAP
  are the two best examples of this.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
E-Mail     : robbat2@g.o
GnuPG FP   : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED  F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85