Well, I am simply going to leave it as full versions for the time
being.  I apologise to dial-up users, but I believe something like this
should follow the policies that will be implemented with GLEP #9.

I would definitely *not* use a USE flags at all, since a USE flag is for
adding or removing optional features from a package.  If anything were
to be used, it would be a FEATURE flag.

Having the user manually fetching patches would break the
non-interactivity of portage.  Yes, I know the ebuld already does this
in a way, but I'm speaking from a general perspective on packages, not
just specific to this one.

An environment variable would be a way to implement the patching, but
would not work with portage, since the SRC_URI would still force the
download of both the full version and the patches.

The only way to keep the portage frmo downloading all the files is via a
USE flag, which I find to be a bad implementation decision for this
particular problem.  Quite honestly, I see all game ebuilds of this type
using patches in the future.  The big problem as I see it is I have had
quite a number of complaints from people BECAUSE I was using the
patches.  They were "annoyed" by the fact that a certain ebuild would
every download the files from a previous version.  Quite honestly, I
should have simply closed the bug as WONTFIX and left everything as it
was with patches.

On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 08:39, Dhruba Bandopadhyay wrote:
> <quote who="Chris Gianelloni">
> > I want to ask the opinion of everyone.  I updated Enemy-Territory
> > yesterday to close two bugs.  In doing so, I made the decision to make
> > the newest version of Enemy Territory use the new full download.  I have
> > had requests from people to have the full download, rather than the
> > original download + patches, as the ebuild.
> 
> Few alternative suggestions:
> 
> (1) Have use flag 'patchpkg' or 'patch'.  If enabled patch the package
> otherwise download.  This is a long term solution that could be used by
> other packages too (although I hear you wish to avoid use flags).
> 
> (2) Check what files present in distfiles.  The user should fetch patch
> manually into distfiles to enable patching.
> 
>   (2) (a) If only patch file present the ebuild opts for patching.
> 
>   (2) (b) If only full new download present ebuild uses it.
> 
>   (2) (c) If both present ebuild uses full download.
> 
> (3) Use an environment variable like USE_PATCH="yes".  They are more
> environmentally friendly given the late explosion in number of use flags
> making them unmanageable and resulting in information overload.
> 
> Adding to the thought pool.  Take from it what you will.  :)
> 
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

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