Re: [gentoo-dev] (U)DEPEND: thoughts?

[Spider]

begin  quote
On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:47:39 +0000
Ian Leitch <port001@g.o> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Disclaimer: This is one of those laying-in-bed-trying-to-get-to-sleep
> ideas.
>
> Some packages require a specific tool to unpack or aid in building of
> said package - rpm2targz is an example. For a lot of users rpm2targz
> will stay installed on their system unused for X amount of time. If a
> new DEPEND were available (say UDEPEND) users could opt to have those
> dependencies uninstalled via a FEATURES flag once the parent package
> had finished installing.
>
> Advantages:
> A little less bloat
> Potentialy one less tool a cracker could use (same idea as having too
> many wooden items in once location, which could be considered a fire
> risk)
>


> Disadvantages:
> One more thing for devs to remember? I can't think of any atm :)
>
> Not much of a killer feature, but atleast one user may find it
> handy...


Well, I'd like to see proper use of DEPEND vs. RDEPEND instead. 
rpm2targz is a DEPEND but not an RDEPEND, and having a portage that
automatically suggests "DEPEND" and not RDEPEND packages as "unneeded"
could be a good thing.

Another idea is to have portage install all RDEPEND but not DEPEND
-after- the package, thereby locking down even more dependency bugs with
malcreated packages.

Separating UDEPEND only to get DEPEND more finegrained isn't a good
thing though.  I really don't see the need for an extra thing just to
unpack but not to compile.


//Spider

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