Ah yes, it was the bad guy George who renamed the balsa package tbass ;)

I agree that its quite nice to have package naming not require the
category and that it should stay that way.  I'd like to see multiple
names be allowed, and to install the others of the same name you just
have to use the category as well.

This makes the common operation of emerge -s return all packages you
might be searching for, which i see as a major disadvantage of not
allowing multiple same named ebuilds.

The question then remains is how to determine which package is the
"default" to be installed if you use only the ebuild name.  I haven't
poked in the code to see how portage is doing it now, but can see three
possible options.  One being alphabetical by category, two being first
come first serve, or three allowing the "most commonly installed" of the
options defined by whomever is maintaining the package(s).  The only
downside is that portage/ebuilds will need yet another thing added to it
similar to SLOTS to help support this =/

my 2 cents
dave

On Tue, 2003-04-15 at 18:11, George Shapovalov wrote:
> Hey Dave.
> 
> I feel your pain ;), I was the one responsible for the package, so I think I 
> need to do some discussion/explanation here.
> While I myself sympathise to the more structured approach and would wellcome 
> distinguishing packages by categories, the sad truth is that portage does not 
> seem to be very consistent even with itself, as Fred Van Andel pointed out.
> 
> Now, not so sad truth :)
> I just wanted to point out, that originallly portage was category-sensitive, 
> and you *had* to specify categiry while emerging the package. The change was 
> made quite consciousnessly, as this feature (of being able to drop category) 
> was quite requested one (if memory serves me well). Heck, I even catch myself 
> now and then enjoing not to have to type too much :). 
> Of course the change has implications, that certain category treatment is not 
> followed, which can lead to the problems, some of which (albeit minor at this 
> point) were emphasized.
> As for the existance of two ocaml's: the thing is that this did not become a 
> strict policy, while it probably should have, and the developer in question 
> might not have known about it. 
> 
> Thus I would like to use your request as a bait for other developers and users 
> to discuss the issue and decide whether we should "officialize" this policy 
> (of not having equivalently named ebuilds under different categories) or 
> should we do something else. However IMHO leaving this as "unofficial" policy 
> may hart in the long run...
> 
> George
> 
> 
> On Tuesday 15 April 2003 17:03, Dave Nellans wrote:
> > Is that true?
> >
> > my very scientific test of doing emerge -p ocaml on several machines
> > returns that dev-lang/ocaml would be installed on every one.  this would
> > seem there is at least "some" mechanism defining which one is returned,
> > even if its as silly as being alphebetical by by category name or ??
> >
> > thanks for the link to the ebuild naming policy chris.  it doesn't
> > address this issue though of multiple ebuilds having the same name if
> > they are in different categories. anyone have thoughts on how this
> > should be done from a technical or user standpoint?  i think from a user
> > standpoint it makes more sense to allow multiple ebuilds with the same
> > name because then a user searching for them will have both returned
> > (even if they have to user the category/ebuild to get that particular
> > one to install)
> >
> > dave
> 
> 
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