[gentoo-dev] Re: A few questions to our nominees

[Duncan]

"=?UTF-8?Q?Piotr_Jaroszy=C5=84ski?=" <peper@g.o> posted
d77765540806091313i4c7f273fq2cbaaaac0654ac5a@××××××××××.com, excerpted
below, on  Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:13:20 +0200:

> What's the point of sourcing an ebuild that cannot be used anyway?

As currently seen in portage at least... a PM can be aware of and source 
an EAPI it can't use, but with the sourcing, can at least print a message 
to the effect "You must have a PM that supports EAPI-X in ordered to 
merge this package."

If the ebuild can't be sourced, then ignoring it altogether is the safest 
alternative -- and what portage would do with anything other 
than .ebuild.  It can't print a message giving the EAPI that must be 
supported, because it can't get that info, it being in the content that 
can't be sourced.

With major-suffix minor-source, once the major-suffix rules were laid 
out, it would be possible to print support messages for minor (within the 
same major), as we do now, and provided the suffix rules were specific 
enough, for cross-major (only) as well, but not cross-major minor.

IOW, the PM could print EAPI minor-1 (major being zero) messages as 
portage does now, and be made to print major-1 messages, but since it 
couldn't source, it couldn't get to the detail of major-1.minor-x, except 
after upgrade to a version that handled major-1, after which minor-x 
would either be supported or a new message could be printed prompting 
further upgrade/sidegrade/downgrade within the major support, to support 
the correct minor, as the case may be.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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