[gentoo-dev] Re: HOMEPAGE and DESCRIPTION in ebuilds? (was: Usefulness of HOMEPAGE=https://www.gentoo.org)

["Miroslav Šulc" <fordfrog@gentoo.org>]

hi,

it's proly little bit off this topic, but why do we have to copy 
homepage and description from ebuild to ebuild? wouldn't it be better to 
move this information to metadata.xml and keep it just there? or does in 
reality one package really have various homepages and various 
descriptions for different versions? metadata.xml could also contain 
more structured data like you outlined, i.e. link to homepage, 
sources/repository, bug tracker and possibly other.

miroslav

Dne 04. 12. 19 v 13:36 Michał Górny napsal(a):
> Hi,
>
> Many of Gentoo-originating packages are listing the main Gentoo site
> as HOMEPAGE.  In my opinion, this is suboptimal (not to say 'useless').
>
> I can think of a few uses for HOMEPAGE:
>
> 1. providing additional information about the package (before the user
> chooses it),
>
> 2. providing easy access to (additional) documentation,
>
> 3. providing easy access to package sources,
>
> 4. providing easy access to bug reporting,
>
> 5. providing easy access to downloads.
>
> A good HOMEPAGE is dedicated to the package in question, and makes it
> easy to find all the stuff (and all other stuff the user might need).
> The more effort user needs to put into finding what he needs, the worse
> HOMEPAGE is.
>
> Now, if I consider gentoo.org as a HOMEPAGE for ~90 packages it
> currently is, it's horribly bad.  I suppose that in some cases authors
> meant to indicate that Gentoo is the package's upstream.  However, by
> going to the main Gentoo site, it's *very hard* to find anything about
> the package in question.
>
> Just please select a totally random package from those listing
> gentoo.org as HOMEPAGE, then go to gentoo.org and try to find either
> of the points listed above.  If you click 'Downloads', you're certainly
> not going to find anything relevant.  Through 'Support', you may
> eventually find that tiny Bugzilla button at the bottom... and then try
> to find the correct Product.  You may also find gitweb link somewhere,
> and try to see if the project has a repo there.  Or maybe it's somewhere
> else, or maybe it existed on somebody's devspace once.
>
> My point is: gentoo.org as a HOMEPAGE sucks.  Please use something more
> specific instead.  Even link to gitweb would be more helpful because it
> would at least be relevant to the package in question.
>