Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [PATCH] sys-devel/autoconf: Convert from eblits into an eclass, #586424

[Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com>]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 21:22:54 +0100
Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Indeed, according to pms.git commit log, the rule was laxed because it
> was clearly an oversight in EAPI6 [1] and was the standard behavior in
> previous EAPIs. But in the same commit, an "harmless note" was added
> that "Ebuilds must not access the directory in global scope." in
> addition to the "May or may not exist" statement and "Not necessarily
> present when installing from a binary package" footnote. Please
> explain how this last addition is not a backwards-breaking change.
> PMS is not a tool to push your personal agenda of cleaning up the
> deve^^err tree.

The original wording should probably have been something like "may or
may not exist, so ebuilds MUST NOT go poking around for it", but the
original wording was written assuming reasonable behaviour from
developers, and we deliberately chose not to go the SHALL, MUST NOT
route because of the added cost of developing a specification that's
safe from hostile implementers.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh