Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] PROPERTIES=virtual for meta-packages (clarification of definition)

[Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org>]

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Michal Kurgan wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:01:48 -0700
> Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
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>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Since there were some questions about ambiguity in the meaning of
>> the proposed PROPERTIES=virtual [1] value, we need to clarify it.
>>
>> [ ... ]
>>
>> Ebuilds that exhibit the "virtual" property commonly serve as a
>> layer of indirection in dependencies. All of the ebuilds in the
>> existing "virtual" category [4] should be eligible to define
>> PROPERTIES=virtual. If the ebuilds in the virtual category were the
>> only ones that exhibited this "virtual" property, then the
>> information that PROPERTIES=virtual represents could simply be
>> inferred from membership of that category. However, existence of
>> meta-packages in the "java-virtuals" category [5], among others,
>> makes it useful to introduce the "virtual" property as a means to
>> identify these ebuilds. Note that some packages, such as x11-libs/qt
>> [6], exhibit this property for some versions and not others. So, in
>> some cases it may be useful to be able to specify the "virtual"
>> property separately for different ebuild versions.
>>
> 
> Wouldn't it be more appropriate to just move the "offending" ebuilds to
> virtual category? e.g. virtual/qt, etc.
> 

A package move doesn't seem very practical given that the "virtual"
property varies from one version to the next. I suppose it could be
done as a split where older versions continue to exist as
x11-libs/qt and newer versions exist as virtual/qt. If we take that
approach then you'll have to convince the java team to combine the
whole java-virtuals category [1] into the virtual category. The same
goes for any other meta-packages such as kde-meta-* or whatnot.

[1] http://packages.gentoo.org/category/java-virtuals
>> - --
>> Thanks,
>> Zac
> 


- --
Thanks,
Zac
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