On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:19:06 +0100
Paul de Vrieze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I would be happy to add it to metadata.xml. I think it would be
> easier to do so, and the tools might come with the possibility.

As an occasional ebuild contributor, i would prefer this directly
in ebuilds rather than in metadata. I mean, if in ebuilds, that's
just one more line to write and i know i will do it when i feel
the info from use.desc are not enough/relevant/meaningful. But if
in metadata.xml, i probably won't, i don't even have a single
metadata.xml file in my overlays (why should i btw?). 

Another argument is that this USE flags descriptions would often
be relevant only for a few versions of the package (I'm thinking
of messages like "Support for libfoo is still a bit experimental,
so use this flag with care. Libbar is still prefered."). Adding
that in metadata.xml would require some kind of per-version tags,
that start to be a bit complex... And I think that for devs, it
would be rather natural to add that kind of temporary notes in
ebuilds (they currently use shell comments anyway), but easy to
forget if in a separate file.

Maybe that's worth a gentoo-dev@ discussion? After all, it's not
just about portage code.

> Direct portage support is not needed.

Hmm, maybe yes. I would not be against an "emerge -p -vv" mode
which would display this USE flag desriptions (not the standard
ones sure, only the ones redefined per-package). That sounds like
the easier way to know that some of them are highly encouraged, or
discouraged, or a bit different from what they mean in general,
etc.

-- 
TGL.

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