On 01/12/2012 20:09, Michael Orlitzky wrote: > The only way to know what's going on is to read the ebuild. And nobody > has the time to do that for every default USE flag change, especially > when you're managing multiple machines. > > In this case, USE="-minimal" is really USE="make_it_work_at_all", for > anyone who installs openldap on purpose.
Not really. Have you ever managed a network of multiple servers and clients? It's extremely common to have USE=minimal on clients, and not on servers, as that's what (most of the time) USE=minimal refers to. > Maybe his boss isn't good with the terminal, and makes him install GNOME > on the servers? Who knows. The profile name is just an arbitrary string > associated with a set of defaults. People do weird things. This is not > in itself proof that the admin is an idiot deserving of punishment. The profile name is not "just an arbitrary string" — it's a description. If you don't read and understand a description as easy as "desktop", I reserve the right to think you're an idiot. You can reserve the right of thinking whatever you want about me, but my opinion still stands. I've had GNOME, or KDE, in many systems before that I wouldn't count as "desktops" — you know how I handled them? Not going through the "desktop" profile. Seriously. > Anyway, I'm fine with the change as long as there's a news item. I just > get annoyed with the "don't use Gentoo unless you like your stuff > broken" attitude. Guess what? I run Gentoo system in production and I also don't want them to be broken. On the other hand I _do_ pay attention on what's going on, especially because unless you install everything and the kitchen sink, the updates on a weekly basis, for stable, are not that major. Sure, sometimes I have to look up what an USE flag does (and no, most of the time I don't have to read the ebuild, we have descriptions in metadata.xml for a reason!), but most of the time everything is extremely easy to set up, and I don't usually get overthrown by defaults' changes. Among others because for stuff I _really_ care about, I don't rely on defaults but I set my flags explicitly (so yes I have a bunch of packages that have -minimal in the package.use file). And I'm not even arguing against adding a news item, it's fine by me either way, but I don't like hearing lame excuses on either side. The fact that something is not entirely clear is a good reason enough, without having to come up with a sysadmin that is not understanding the tools as an example. If anything, what you just say would call for making openldap follow the 39 packages already out there using IUSE=+server, so that there is no doubt that changing the default on desktop profile from USE=-minimal to USE=-server means that _you're losing your server_. Robin, how would you feel about that? It would also solve the issue of USE=cxx depending on USE=!minimal right now (for not really any good reason). -- Diego Elio Pettenò — Flameeyes flamee...@flameeyes.eu — http://blog.flameeyes.eu/
