On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 14:10:51 +0100
Roy Marples <uberlord@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Some packages provide both a client and a server. As such, users
> usually only want one or the other - and rarely both.
> 
> A good candidate is net-misc/dhcp as it installs a DHCP client and
> server. Which makes no sense really, so I'd like to put some USE
> flags here to show what I want, or not want to build.
> 
> A quick scan through the use flags show no real consistency, so
> here's what I propose
> 
> USE client server
> client - just build the client - duh
> server - just build the server - duh
> client and server OR neither then build both.

Doing this by USE flag would cause problems I think; if other stuff
depends on the server or the client, you get USE-flag problems
with portage dependencies met but the actual dependency not met.  We
have some of this sort of thing already - which manifests with ebuilds
aborting in pkg_setup if they detect that a dependency wasn't emerged
with the necessary USE flags.

A better approach in this case, IMO, is to split it into two ebuilds -
well, three if you keep the existing package as a meta-package
depending on both client and server.  So you would have:

net-misc/dhcp-client

net-misc/dhcp-server

net-misc/dhcp - empty but for RDEPEND on the above.


A similar thing already happens with net-dns/bind and
net-dns/bind-tools, which are both built from the same upstream tarball
but one installs the server, the other installs just the client
programs.


> 
> Other packages to possably beneift
> udhcp
> mldonkey
> samhain
> bacula
> boxbackup
> 
> Interestingly, many packages have a server USE flag but not a client
> one - maybe make both a global USE flag?
> 
> Good idea? Bad idea? Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks
> 


-- 
Kevin F. Quinn