On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 8:39 AM <n...@troglodyte.be> wrote: > > > Why not introducing a new level in the hierarchy ? Something like "common" > could be fit. > > default/linux/amd64/13.0 > default/linux/amd64/13.0/common > default/linux/amd64/13.0/common/desktop > default/linux/amd64/13.0/common/developer > ... > > By doing so we could still have a bare profiles with minimal things set to > work, and have the > common subset with sane defaults for most users.
I think one of the issues is that our docs/defaults and the mentality of our users tends to drive them to what looks like the most basic starting point. I think that having a base profile intended just as an inheritance point for other profiles makes sense technically, but it may not actually be a good default for end-users. If you set up the example above, how many would would still pick 13.0 as their starting point, and not common? Now, there is nothing that says that inheritance has to follow the directory tree. We could have a default/linux/amd64/13.0/donotuse/core profile that everything inherits, and make that the minimal one. It just means that most profiles under 13.0 wouldn't inherit 13.0. To some degree we may have painted ourselves into a bit of a corner by presenting this as a heirarchy, as it tends to force the bottom of the heirarchy to be the best profile for inheritance, when it is also the first thing users see as well. -- Rich
