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List:       gentoo-desktop
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-desktop]  Re: Proposal: Split kde use flag into kde3
From:       Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz () gentoo ! org>
Date:       2009-04-28 15:17:10
Message-ID: 20090428151710.GC15590 () comet
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On 14:19 Mon 27 Apr     , Duncan wrote:
> In particular, don't make the mistake gtk/gtk2 did for awhile.  USE=gtk 
> indicated a general desire to have gtk (of any version) support, while 
> USE=gtk2 indicated that gtk2 should be favored over gtk1, otherwise, gtk1 
> was the default.  That policy, which looked quite reasonable when gtk2 
> was new and experimental, ended up boxing them into a corner as gtk2 
> improved and became the dominant version, while gtk1 grew stale and was 
> eventually deprecated in the Gentoo tree and later masked and ultimately 
> removed (along with any packages, xmms being one of the most popular, 
> that hadn't upgraded to gtk2 by then), and they ultimately ended up 
> changing it in a way that couldn't be anything /but/ rough for some users.
> 
> But even before that it was a pain, because it didn't follow the 
> intuitive idea that USE=gtk meant gtk1 support while USE=gtk2 meant gtk2 
> support.  New users very often enabled gtk2 without enabling gtk, 
> believing they were expressing a desire for gtk2 support but NOT gtk1, 
> when instead what it was really expressing was, don't support gtk (of any 
> version) unless you have to, but if it's mandatory and there's a choice, 
> choose gtk2 over gtk1.

One thing that's changed since then is package-local USE defaults. So 
you can pick the best (most stable, etc) toolkit on a per-package level 
and have a versioned USE flag for the other (if it's newer) or don't 
have an option at all (if it's older than the stable one).


-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Desktop project lead
Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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