Re: [gentoo-dev] Optional Package Dependencies for netscape-flash -> libflashsupport

[Josh Saddler]

Jim Ramsay wrote:
> Olivier Crête wrote:
>> On Thu, 2007-10-05 at 14:20 -0400, Patrick McLean wrote:
>>> Jim Ramsay wrote:
>>>> 1) Create a single local USE flag (flashsupport or something)
>>>> that will just pull in this dependency.
>>>>
>>>> 2) Use the same set of USE flags as libflashsupport has, with any
>>>> of them adding libflashsupport to the dep list, since these are
>>>> all global flags and will most likely be enabled for both
>>>> netscape-flash and libflashsupport
>>>>
>>>> I'm personally thinking (1) is the better of the 2 options, but
>>>> I'd like to know if anyone has any other wondrous solutions to
>>>> this.
>>> Does/will anything else dep on flashsupport? If not, why not just
>>> add the USE flags to netscape-flash and install libflashsupport as
>>> part of the netscape-flash install instead of a separate package.
>> If its a separate package that will be updated separately, then it
>> doesn't make sense to put it in the separate package and I support
>> option 1. Otherwise, if they'll always be together, then just put it
>> in the same package.
>
> Yes, libflashsupport is distributed separately and is on a different
> release schedule than netscape-flash.
>
> I suppose I could also propose:
>
> 4) netscape-flash just RDEPENDS on libflashsupport all the time.  It's
> certainly not a large library to be added on.
>

That is a terrible idea. Don't make it "depend" on something that it
clearly does *not* depend on. Flash works just fine without the optional
add-ons, and those are *definitely* optional. I've never needed
libflashsupport and would prefer not seeing useless cruft attached to a
perfectly working Flash installation.

If you're going to add it to USE, then make sure it's *not* on by
default, thanks.