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On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 15:47 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: |
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> Not really. For some packages, cron files must always be installed for |
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> proper operation. For some packages, cron files are strictly optional |
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> extras for features that many users will not want. For many it's |
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> somewhere in between. For packages in the first group, a USE flag is |
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> silly. For packages in the second group, not using a USE flag is silly. |
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> For the in-between cases, that's one of those areas where the ebuild |
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> maintainer has to make an educated decision. |
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|
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Personally, I would prefer USE *not* be used for this. As I understand |
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it, USE is for optional dependencies/support in a package. The |
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logrotate USE is a good example of this not being the case. The package |
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has logrotate support already, or the logrotate file's existence is not |
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tied in any way to what the package was compiled with (squid being the |
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obvious exemption here). |
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|
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Basically, if the package *requires* something to function, such as a |
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cron script, then it should install it unconditionally. If it does not, |
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then it shouldn't install it. Having to change USE to get a stupid |
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cron/logrotate file is definitely not the best option. Why not install |
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it to /usr/share/doc/$package as $package.logrotate and tell the user |
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about it instead? The only case mentioned where the logrotate USE flag |
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changes functionality is squid, so it should keep the logrotate local |
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USE and everything else should drop it, then copy the logrotate files |
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into /usr/share/doc. That way I don't have to --newuse and recompile a |
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package just to get a simple example logrotate file, things don't get |
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shoved into /etc without consent, and everybody is happy, right? (Yeah |
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right... :P) |
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|
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-- |
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Chris Gianelloni |
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Release Engineering - Strategic Lead |
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x86 Architecture Team |
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Games - Developer |
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Gentoo Linux |