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Hi everyone, |
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|
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Since there were some questions about ambiguity in the meaning of |
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the proposed PROPERTIES=virtual [1] value, we need to clarify it. |
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Just as the "live" property [2] is intended to have a pure and |
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simple meaning, so is the "virtual" property. The "virtual" property |
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will serve only as a hint, to indicate that dependency calculations |
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should consider the package to have zero installation cost (see bug |
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141118 [3] for an example of why this knowledge is useful). The |
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"virtual" property should not imply anything more than this, and |
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therefore the package manager should assume that the package is to |
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be treated exactly the same as other ebuilds in every other way. The |
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package should be installed and uninstalled just like any other |
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ebuild, including execution of all of the normal ebuild phase |
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functions that would be executed for any other ebuild that does not |
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exhibit the "virtual" property. |
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|
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Ebuilds that exhibit the "virtual" property commonly serve as a |
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layer of indirection in dependencies. All of the ebuilds in the |
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existing "virtual" category [4] should be eligible to define |
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PROPERTIES=virtual. If the ebuilds in the virtual category were the |
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only ones that exhibited this "virtual" property, then the |
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information that PROPERTIES=virtual represents could simply be |
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inferred from membership of that category. However, existence of |
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meta-packages in the "java-virtuals" category [5], among others, |
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makes it useful to introduce the "virtual" property as a means to |
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identify these ebuilds. Note that some packages, such as x11-libs/qt |
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[6], exhibit this property for some versions and not others. So, in |
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some cases it may be useful to be able to specify the "virtual" |
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property separately for different ebuild versions. |
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|
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Do the name and definition of this PROPERTIES=virtual value seem |
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good? Would anybody like to discuss any changes to the name, |
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definition, or both? |
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[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/57610 |
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[2] |
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http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_64b83155637bcad67478e2d2af276780.xml |
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[3] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141118 |
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[4] http://packages.gentoo.org/category/virtual |
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[5] http://packages.gentoo.org/category/java-virtuals |
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[6] http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-libs/qt |
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- -- |
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Thanks, |
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Zac |
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