Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: new category for container related packages, instead of app-emulation

[Joshua Kinard]

On 8/5/2021 20:57, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 2:44 PM Georgy Yakovlev <gyakovlev@g.o> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We've been collecting more and more container related packages in
>>  app-emulation/*
>>
>> What do you think about finally moving those packages to separate category?
>
> As always my opinion is that:
>
> (a) Categories were a design mistake.
> (b) The mistake is hard to fix.
> (c) It's basically low-value to try to 'correctly' categorize packages
> because of A.
> (d) Recategorizing means a bunch of stuff has to be updated.
>
> Do people actually care what category things are in? I just use
> --search or eix or whatever and the category is just this...bad
> concept we attach to packages for silly historical reasons..
>
> -A

Categories are there because Portage was originally inspired by FreeBSD's
Ports system, which also uses categories.  Though they have far, far fewer
categories than we do.  They also don't have the two-tier system of
"foo-bar/package".  Just "foo/package".  So not really a design mistake,
per-say, but rather an intentional part of the original design of Portage.

That said, other distros also use categories for their packaging systems,
they're just less apparent.  Run aptitude in Debian for a curses-based
interface to the apt system and you can browse their multi-level package
organization....which can be quite the rabbit hole at times.  Far easier to
just search for what you're looking for there.

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@g.o
rsa6144/5C63F4E3F5C6C943 2015-04-27
177C 1972 1FB8 F254 BAD0 3E72 5C63 F4E3 F5C6 C943

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
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--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic