Gentoo Archives: gentoo-pms

From: Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o>
To: gentoo-pms@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-pms] Why do we have mandatory ebuild variables?
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 13:57:26
Message-Id: 20482.52273.749308.173776@a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de
1 PMS says that seven variables (DESCRIPTION, HOMEPAGE, SRC_URI,
2 LICENSE, SLOT, KEYWORDS, IUSE) are mandatory in ebuilds. In bug 425848
3 and in #gentoo-portage the question arose why this is needed.
4 For example, many live ebuilds don't define SRC_URI or KEYWORDS, and
5 package managers seem to have no problem with it. (?)
6
7 Virtuals could profit if they wouldn't have to define variables like
8 HOMEPAGE, SRC_URI, and LICENSE that are meaningless for them.
9
10 Could we loosen this requirement for the variables that are allowed to
11 be empty (i.e. all except DESCRIPTION and SLOT), or would this cause
12 any trouble with package managers? For EAPI 5, or retroactively?
13
14 Ulrich

Replies

Subject Author
[gentoo-pms] Re: Why do we have mandatory ebuild variables? Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o>