Re: [gentoo-dev] Guidelines for IUSE defaults

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 02/02/2017 09:56 AM, Ian Stakenvicius wrote:
>
>> On Feb 2, 2017, at 9:11 AM, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@g.o>
>> wrote:
>>
>> IUSE defaults are used in a few different ways:
>>
>> 1 To ensure that critical functionality is enabled.
>>
>> * Example: force the "unix" module for apache.
>>
>
> This is not what IUSE defaults are for, this should be done with
> package.use{,.stable}.{mask,force} in profiles.  If functionality is
> critical then there (A) shouldn't be a use flag, or (B) shouldn't be
> a way for USE= in make.conf to disable it.
>

If we adopted this policy, then USE="-*" would no longer be guaranteed
to break the system. It does still ignore your profile defaults, though,
which presumably are important (e.g. for hardened). So we're still left
with no way for me to turn off everyone's pet USE flags and keep my
system working.