Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Default Ebuild behaviour
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:55:53
Message-Id: 1138737060.14527.14.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Default Ebuild behaviour by Ciaran McCreesh
1 On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 15:47 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
2 > Not really. For some packages, cron files must always be installed for
3 > proper operation. For some packages, cron files are strictly optional
4 > extras for features that many users will not want. For many it's
5 > somewhere in between. For packages in the first group, a USE flag is
6 > silly. For packages in the second group, not using a USE flag is silly.
7 > For the in-between cases, that's one of those areas where the ebuild
8 > maintainer has to make an educated decision.
9
10 Personally, I would prefer USE *not* be used for this. As I understand
11 it, USE is for optional dependencies/support in a package. The
12 logrotate USE is a good example of this not being the case. The package
13 has logrotate support already, or the logrotate file's existence is not
14 tied in any way to what the package was compiled with (squid being the
15 obvious exemption here).
16
17 Basically, if the package *requires* something to function, such as a
18 cron script, then it should install it unconditionally. If it does not,
19 then it shouldn't install it. Having to change USE to get a stupid
20 cron/logrotate file is definitely not the best option. Why not install
21 it to /usr/share/doc/$package as $package.logrotate and tell the user
22 about it instead? The only case mentioned where the logrotate USE flag
23 changes functionality is squid, so it should keep the logrotate local
24 USE and everything else should drop it, then copy the logrotate files
25 into /usr/share/doc. That way I don't have to --newuse and recompile a
26 package just to get a simple example logrotate file, things don't get
27 shoved into /etc without consent, and everybody is happy, right? (Yeah
28 right... :P)
29
30 --
31 Chris Gianelloni
32 Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
33 x86 Architecture Team
34 Games - Developer
35 Gentoo Linux

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Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Default Ebuild behaviour Alin Nastac <mrness@g.o>