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