[gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Aisha Tammy]

Hi all,
   I am proposing to make the `man` USE flag into a global one.
Currently it is used by ~45 packages most of which have the same
description 'Build and install man pages':
https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/man
Hopefully no objections to this part?

Cheers,
Aisha

Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Thomas Mueller]

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> Hi all,
>    I am proposing to make the `man` USE flag into a global one.
> Currently it is used by ~45 packages most of which have the same
> description 'Build and install man pages':
> https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/man
> Hopefully no objections to this part?
 
> Cheers,
> Aisha

Seems like a good idea to me.
 
Tom

Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Alessandro Barbieri]

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Il Sab 13 Feb 2021, 02:19 Aisha Tammy <gentoo.dev@aisha.cc> ha scritto:

> Hi all,
>    I am proposing to make the `man` USE flag into a global one.
> Currently it is used by ~45 packages most of which have the same
> description 'Build and install man pages':
> https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/man
> Hopefully no objections to this part?
>
> Cheers,
> Aisha
>

IMO manpages should be installed unconditionally and the useflag dropped

>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Toralf Förster]

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On 2/13/21 12:16 PM, Alessandro Barbieri wrote:
> 
> IMO manpages should be installed unconditionally and the useflag dropped
I'd like to disagree - IIRC there're packages with a ridiculous large 
and expensive dep tree just to build their man pages.

-- 
Toralf
PGP 23217DA7 9B888F45


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Ionen Wolkens]

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On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 12:26:51PM +0100, Toralf Förster wrote:
> On 2/13/21 12:16 PM, Alessandro Barbieri wrote:
> > 
> > IMO manpages should be installed unconditionally and the useflag dropped
> I'd like to disagree - IIRC there're packages with a ridiculous large 
> and expensive dep tree just to build their man pages.
> 
It "would" be fine if maintainers were all willing to pre-build man
pages and distribute them where relevant.

There was a previous attempt[1] to make this a policy but it didn't
work out. So now everyone is doing what they prefer, including using
USE=man or unconditionally pulling deps just for man pages.

If maintainers don't all want to do this for every packages, then I
think USE=man needs to stay and go global, lot of users even get
angered by not-so-heavy sphinx being pulled only for man pages they
never read.

[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/a6a8e840773da77ee6008ac23b4f89e1
-- 
ionen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[m1027]

toralf:

> On 2/13/21 12:16 PM, Alessandro Barbieri wrote:
> > 
> > IMO manpages should be installed unconditionally and the useflag dropped
>
> I'd like to disagree - IIRC there're packages with a ridiculous large 
> and expensive dep tree just to build their man pages.

Agreed.  That's saying a man page fan. :-)

There might be good resons for developers to not pre-build their man
pages. At least, we cannot change that.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Make 'man' global USE flag from currently local

[Adam Feldman]

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On 2/13/21 6:16 AM, Alessandro Barbieri wrote:
> Il Sab 13 Feb 2021, 02:19 Aisha Tammy <gentoo.dev@aisha.cc> ha scritto:
> 
>     Hi all,
>        I am proposing to make the `man` USE flag into a global one.
>     Currently it is used by ~45 packages most of which have the same
>     description 'Build and install man pages':
>     https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/man
>     Hopefully no objections to this part?
> 
>     Cheers,
>     Aisha
> 
> 
> IMO manpages should be installed unconditionally and the useflag dropped
> 

The key point to be stressed is BUILD and install.  In most, if not all
of those packages in question, I suspect they distribute prebuilt
manpages.  They USE flag is typically used to specify whether to pull
deps to (re)build from scratch.  So, the  issue isn't really so much
manpages being installed unconditionally, but whether they should be
built from scratch when they are shipped prebuilt.

-- 
Thanks,

Adam Feldman
Gentoo Developer
NP-Hardass@gentoo.org
0x671C52F118F89C67


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