Re: [gentoo-dev] A new category scheme idea

[Einar Karttunen]

On 04.02.02 12:47 +0100(+0000), gentoo-user@××××××××.net wrote:
> On 4 Feb 2002, Vitaly Kushneriuk wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 13:25, gentoo-user@××××××××.net wrote:
>
> > Just an idea:
> > to simplify it we can have *optional* KEYWORDS="xxx yyy" in
> > ebuild file, and "emerge --update-keywords" command to
> > scan through available ebuilds and dump their names to apropriate files
> > under /usr/portage/keywords
> > i.e. if in dev-lang/python-2.1.1-r3.ebuild, there's
> > KEYWORD="DEVELOPMENT PYTHON COMPILER"
> > dev-lang/python-2.1.1-r3 will be appended to
> > /usr/portage/keywords/{DEVELOPMENT,PYTHON,COMPILER}
> >
>
> Slick idea, I don't know whether we want categories or keywords, but it
> basically comes down on the same thing. But you're right that's the way to
> do it with the least amount of maintenance.
>

I don't think so. The work would just go into specifying keywords for the
ebuilds. If we have categories it is easier to create local categories
and organise ebuilds by criterion the original author didn't think of.
For example lynx could be put into console-apps and web-browsers, but
this may be done without touching the ebuild at all. So someone may create
an category without consulting the authors of the respective ebuilds.
This would remove the dependency of managing categories and ebuilds
and distribute the work. Also new experimental ebuilds could be added 
quickly into portage and integrated into official categories when they 
prove successful. Gentoo installations could be copied by creating
a custom category containing all installed applications and then 
merging it on another server.

- Einar Karttunen