Re: [gentoo-dev] berkdb and gdbm in global USE defaults

[Mart Raudsepp]

Ühel kenal päeval, R, 27.01.2017 kell 13:08, kirjutas Kristian
Fiskerstrand:
> On 01/27/2017 01:01 PM, Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:54 AM, Mart Raudsepp <leio@g.o>
> > wrote:
> > > Ühel kenal päeval, N, 26.01.2017 kell 22:33, kirjutas Mike
> > > Gilbert:
> > > > I recently ran into a REQUIRED_USE constraint that required I
> > > > select
> > > > between berkdb and gdbm for an email client.
> > >
> > > There shouldn't be a REQUIRED_USE constraint that forces you to
> > > select
> > > one or the other. The maintainer should be giving the choice of
> > > both,
> > > but if only one can be chosen, the maintainer should make the
> > > choice
> > > for you by preferring one of them. Likely gdbm, given berkdb
> > > licensing
> > > saga.
> >
> > I'm not sure this makes sense to me. If the package will actually
> > select one implementation out of a set, it makes sense to me that
> > the
> > maintainer for that package makes that choice explicit towards the
> > user. In that case, setting REQUIRED_USE accordingly seems exactly
> > right. The maintainer should set a good default, but if the user's
> > USE
> > settings are inconclusive in getting to the choice of
> > implementation,
> > it's better to whine explicitly than try to guess implicitly what
> > the
> > user wanted.
>
> I tend to agree with this sentiment, explicit over implicit behavior
> ensures better debugging ability and security considerations.
>

It breaks the highly sought after "Gentoo is about choice" mantra.
In this case, choice to not care and have the best chosen for me.