On Tue, 2004-05-18 at 21:08 +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:

> I'm pro-choice, and do not agree with the idea of aggregating USE flags just 
> because they sound similar.

The second time you mention choice. I guess we know what Gentoo is about
by now, the 'choice' argument is too often used just to end criticism.

Choice is an illusion, if you there's too much choice it is no use to
anyone anymore, because nobody really knows what it is all about. This
is already the case with the loads of USE flags/portage options/etc. we
have. Gentoo shouldn't be about choice for the sake of it, it should be
about simplicity/managability : stuff that works. It's a trade-off.

I wasn't too happy with the introducation of local USE flags for just
the reasons that are becoming a problem now. Too much flags, everybody
adds them at will without good reasons. We used to just say to people
who wanted a specific (rare) set-up that they could easily edit the
ebuild themselves to their need, but nowadays it seems we have to hold
hands all the time and add complexity for nothing. That's good for
nobody really. The installation manual used to be like 5 pages, by now
it's a book of it's own per arch. I don't think that's a good thing and
we should be really, really careful about what we can do to stop this
movement.

- foser