Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] New QA policy: Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags

[desultory]

On 07/25/19 04:14, Kent Fredric wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:10:49 -0400
> desultory <desultory@g.o> wrote:
>
>> The user-side effects pf the proposal in question, were it to become
>> policy, would be that anyone seeking to not install what is presently
>> optional documentation would either be:
>> (1) wasting build time and space (and, depending on implementation,
>> dependencies) on their build system (potentially  masking the files from
>> being installed);
>> (2) wasting the space in their installed image(s) (if they did not mask
>> the files which would not currently be installed anyway); or
>> (3) wasting their own time working around what the developers would be
>> required by policy to implement by repackaging the software themselves
>> to avoid the time and space drawbacks (though this would generally be
>> expected to be a rather exceptional case, as it would be relatively
>> extreme to avoid what would be a distfile and some file masking from the
>> user side).
>
> Those concerns as per current policy is unrelated to the
> dependency-control-of-USE issue presented here.
>
> Its already established not to use a USE flag to toggle building of man
> pages if it doesn't require additional dependencies.
>
> These are _man_ pages we're talking about, not general purpose
> documentation.
>
> End users who don't like man pages are encouraged to use the relevant
> FEATURES to strip them from the installed image, or use INSTALL_MASK or
> something. ( FEATURES=noman )
>
> The GOAL here is to provide man pages in *all* circumstances, and, if
> additional dependencies are required to build them, to ALWAYS install
> them, or NEVER install them, and then, find a secondary way to obtain
> man pages (prebuilt)
>
> The Total Cost of man pages as pure files on the target system is tiny,
> and has practically no risk with regards to complexity.
>
> But the cost of *dependencies* has risk, and can inflate to complexity,
> causing much more real problems for more users than a few kb of .1.bz2
> files.
>
> Hence, why we gate them with USE flags: Because it provides an out for
> that complexity ( at the cost of giving a different kind of complexity,
> and a reduction in utility if somebody has to opt-out to get around
> that initial complexity )
>
So, we more or less concur on those points, or are you attempting to
convey some other meaning by restating points?

> And hence why the counter-proposal to USE flags to solve that
> complexity a different way is "prebuild them yourself and ship
> them" ( as that eliminates all the dependency complexity and USE flag
> complexity user side, while also giving them the man pages -> Quality )
>
> Just the current mechanisms for this counter-proposal shift that
> inescapable complexity to a place where it becomes harder to manage in
> a standardized way.
>
Are you referring to a QA mandate to package or build man pages,
regardless as a counter proposal to the status quo? If so, why? It is a
proposal; the status quo is, at the risk of redundancy, the present
state of things.

> And I don't think shifting this complexity to maintainers is the right
> step, even though I want the same deliverables.
>
> That's why I'd rather a way to shift this complexity to a build
> service, ... albeit, it introduces some complexity of its own with the
> building and distribution of these man pages.
>
As I have noted twice before in discussion of this proposal, such a
build service once existed, and indeed could alternately be provided as
a side effect of one or more of the tinderboxes still in operation, and
could with some additional scripting automatically generate such packages.

> Complexity is a pain-in-the-ass, you can't get rid of it, only shift it
> around till it stops hurting.
>
> However, all that said, If we're going to shoot some kind of
> documentation in the face for the pain its dependency-complexity
> introduces, let it be "info".
>
> - Far fewer people enjoy or can actually get useful information out of
>   info pages
> - Its build tooling frequently has dizzying problems in dependency
>   complexity and fragility, frequently made worse by portage getting
>   build ordering wrong after perl upgrades.[1]
>
> (Hopefully we've fixed the worst of that, but this is plutonium, a gift
> that keeps giving cancer)
>
> 1: https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=texinfo
>
Since when is anyone proposing extirpating man pages on the whole? I am
simply making the rather simple suggestion that pulling in more packages
to support presently optional documentation as newly mandated
documentation when such documentation is neither expected nor desired by
the users of systems onto which it would be installed is not a net
benefit to anyone. Even default on USE flags would be a better "fix" for
the purported problem then making maintainers generate, package, and
publish man pages themselves.