On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

please stop top posting. you're making a mess of this whole thread.

sounds like we should extend the profiles.desc file or profile structure to
include a description so that people know the intention of each one. the only
marker we had before was implicitly in the name (".../server" and
".../desktop").
-mike

The addition of this extra info about the profiles sounds great, but back to the original issue-- what *is* the intention of the server target? Right now it seems like nothing more than a broken outdated vanity title, for people who feel that using a "standard" profile on a server is icky. No one actually believes that the server target's USE flags make any sense, and no one has proposed what they SHOULD be. All that seems to be established is a general feeling "don't take away our server profiles".

Whether it's time to flat out *remove* those profiles, I don't know. But if these profiles aren't going to be updated or maintained in any way, I believe that new users should be shielded from them. They are not a viable or sensible choice for ANY new installation. In my ideal world ("if I were king"), today I would delist them from profiles.desc, and send out a news item warning of their immediate deprecation and planned removal 3 months from now.