On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 15:47 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: > Not really. For some packages, cron files must always be installed for > proper operation. For some packages, cron files are strictly optional > extras for features that many users will not want. For many it's > somewhere in between. For packages in the first group, a USE flag is > silly. For packages in the second group, not using a USE flag is silly. > For the in-between cases, that's one of those areas where the ebuild > maintainer has to make an educated decision.
Personally, I would prefer USE *not* be used for this. As I understand it, USE is for optional dependencies/support in a package. The logrotate USE is a good example of this not being the case. The package has logrotate support already, or the logrotate file's existence is not tied in any way to what the package was compiled with (squid being the obvious exemption here). Basically, if the package *requires* something to function, such as a cron script, then it should install it unconditionally. If it does not, then it shouldn't install it. Having to change USE to get a stupid cron/logrotate file is definitely not the best option. Why not install it to /usr/share/doc/$package as $package.logrotate and tell the user about it instead? The only case mentioned where the logrotate USE flag changes functionality is squid, so it should keep the logrotate local USE and everything else should drop it, then copy the logrotate files into /usr/share/doc. That way I don't have to --newuse and recompile a package just to get a simple example logrotate file, things don't get shoved into /etc without consent, and everybody is happy, right? (Yeah right... :P) -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering - Strategic Lead x86 Architecture Team Games - Developer Gentoo Linux
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