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Apparently, though unproven, at 23:18 on Wednesday 17 November 2010, Grant |
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Edwards did opine thusly: |
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> > No, but they generally set the USE defaults to give the same settings |
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> > as running ./configure with none. In other words, they are following |
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> > the upstream defaults. |
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> |
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> We seem to be going around in circles. :) |
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> |
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> The merits of using HAL for Xorg config aside, I am still curious |
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> about where the "default" configuration for a package comes from. Is |
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> there a written policy somewhere that tells devs how to set the |
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> default USE flags? |
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All the clues are in |
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http://devmanual.gentoo.org/index.html |
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but it requires a gigantic dose of brain smarts and think-for-yourself. |
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Developers of any sort have to be in the upper-IQ range of humanity (otherwise |
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they couldn't develop shit) so this is a fairly safe assumption. |
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You will notice that the tree contains relatively few Gentoo-maintained patch |
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files (compared to say Ubuntu and Red Hat). Gentoo prefers to get patches from |
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upstream or some other distro. The manual is full of references to get patches |
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and bugs registered and fixed upstream instead of in the tree. |
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Now, the only sane way this could work in a sane ecosystem is to track |
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upstream as close as possible while not breaking things. An ebuild maintainer |
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sets the USE flags in whatever suitable way {,s}he feels like to make that |
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come about. The entire spirit in which the manual is written communicates that |
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concept strongly. |
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Very little of this is documented in an idiot-tree do-this-now-do-that fashion |
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because: |
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a. our devs are not idiots. |
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b. our devs are assumed to have smarts upstairs. |
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c. our devs are assumed to only pretend to be pedantic geeky gits who nit-pick |
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about words, and not to actually *be* like that their entire life 24/7/365/75. |
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In other words, they can think with a concept and not need instructions. |
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d. they do not need a manual to know how to breathe either. Same principle. |
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-- |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |
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