Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Global USE=gui

[Daniel Campbell]

On 06/02/2016 12:57 PM, Damien Levac wrote:
>
>
> On 2016-06-02 03:42 PM, waltdnes@××××××××.org wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 02, 2016 at 09:31:11AM -0400, Damien Levac wrote
>>> IMHO, you see this in reverse. the 'gui' useflag would be useful for
>>> users who don't want to care about X/wayland/mir and do not want to care
>>> about gtk/qt, they just want windows to be drawn for the applications
>>> they install -- without, if possible, pulling useless dependencies.
>>    How, exactly, will the app draw windows without linking against one of
>> X/wayland/mir/qt4/qt5/gtk2/gtk3/fltk or whatever else comes down the
>> pike?
> It will be linked to one of those, but the users don't want to care so
> reasonable default would apply.
>
> For example, if I have setup my profile to be 'plasma', then having
> 'gui' in my global use flags would mean "build with qt5 support to
> provide my gui whenever possible, if not possible, fallback to whatever
> is available at the discretion of the package maintainer".
>
> 2 nice properties I foresee this feature will have:
>
> * If you do not like it, don't use it. It shouldn't affect any user
> unless they explicitly use the flag.
> * Negating the flag would mean to not build any GUI (i.e. headless
> server) which is cleaner than: '-qt3support -qt4 -qt5 -gtk -gtk3 -X
> -waylang...'
>
> I do not think the question is whether the flag would be useful: it
> will. The question is: can it be implemented efficiently...
>
>
To play devil's advocate, can we get a citation on "users don't want to
care"? Which users? Does Gentoo have a lot of users who don't care, or
does it attract a more passionate audience that enjoys the control that
comes with being source-based? I'm inclined to believe the latter, but
I'm ready to be wrong.

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
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