From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20C841395ED for ; Mon, 3 Aug 2015 22:27:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 80F8214030; Mon, 3 Aug 2015 22:27:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-wi0-f174.google.com (mail-wi0-f174.google.com [209.85.212.174]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 733D914015 for ; Mon, 3 Aug 2015 22:27:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wibxm9 with SMTP id xm9so140882202wib.0 for ; Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:27:45 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=subject:to:references:from:message-id:date:user-agent:mime-version :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=HdpH8qfUAyzrVG9PgQ4skuetVQ7ZsWtmllapMmvgirY=; b=fy6oW3XzkK25LTbyqxAI0eiNxThuWHWyFEsZi6SAEJtyHqXgTompKirxgAuqpcjSLg vESjDtnFapVViJT7Zz196k/H7a8iHZYx/Tp+mVNWCCp7Qff33fLxr2lihDCmKP7h62Ft YopzEqEHo7bIE9uRsNgsdLFgFcrspUirbPslKCwIvbALD4xgyWe+y7tav0RAsRiivEW6 NFXkLBGeAanAdtLgLAUQyLNMYXCJadocY/wjjWReUIifCFcdRUa2wD4lwedPNRoizXwc Il/tPQUktxgnjSnZo9gS6l6+FKv5WUU+Dg4m43SW3owBdYwPsVfsqsJlWqWX4DU7mcW1 7cEQ== X-Received: by 10.194.81.137 with SMTP id a9mr638567wjy.155.1438640865027; Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:27:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [172.20.0.41] (105-237-246-186.access.mtnbusiness.co.za. [105.237.246.186]) by smtp.googlemail.com with ESMTPSA id uo6sm24968566wjc.1.2015.08.03.15.27.43 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:27:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] useflag policies To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org References: <1529265.CbNzYPavOm@localhost> <1603785.jMhK8ZuARh@liwardyna> From: Alan McKinnon X-Enigmail-Draft-Status: N1110 Message-ID: <55BFEAD8.6000007@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2015 00:27:36 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.1.0 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 22a5f1a4-28c9-4815-82b6-7a6e90e4ac17 X-Archives-Hash: aba6b7142644a523f95d1bed865a63db On 03/08/2015 22:20, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Mon, Aug 3, 2015 at 3:07 PM, Maciej Mrozowski wrote: >> On Sunday 02 of August 2015 21:37:36 Rich Freeman wrote: >> | The approach qt4=qt4 >> | and qt5=qt5 seems simpler on the surface, but it means that users end >> | up having to set tons of per-package configurations when they don't >> | actually care which one they use, >> >> I will risk a thesis that if they didn't care, they wouldn't have chosen >> Gentoo... >> > > Obviously there are many reasons people use Gentoo, but here is my > perspective on this. > > The value of Gentoo is that it gives you a LOT of power to tweak > individual package configurations, without the requirement to do this > for everything. There are packages that I carefully configure USE > flags for, CFLAGS for, epatch_user, and so on. Heck, some packages I > run in containers where I can carefully control almost all aspects of > their environment. Then on the same host I'll have screen and bash > and a million other packages installed where exact configuration is > not critical, and so I want it to "just work." If I wanted to > micromanage everything I might as well run Linux From Scratch. > > Gentoo should be the best of both worlds. We should give users the > power to tweak things, but we shouldn't force them to play with config > files all day long just to have a functional system. If users want to > care we let them care instead of telling them "don't touch" like most > other distros, but if they don't care we still provide reasonable > defaults. > +1 One of the most powerful aspects of ebuilds is the ability to not have to control something the user does not want to. I use Gentoo because I can control what I wish and like Rich the bits I want to control are a small fraction of the whole. When a dev says "I will risk a thesis that if they didn't care, they wouldn't have chosen Gentoo", there is a place for that but it is by no means the general case. We DO accommodate the control freaks, we let them USE="-*" and let them keep all the tiny shards. But the truth is far more subtle than a care-all/care-none scenario. I say stick with reasonable defaults, and for better or worse, that includes "use highest version in ACCEPT_KEYWORDS unless user says otherwise" -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com