HEADSUP: FLAVORS (initial version) and subpackages proposals

[Franco Fichtner]

Hi,

> On 19 Dec 2016, at 1:31 AM, Baptiste Daroussin <bapt at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> 
> For flavors I would like to propose a simple approach first which is more like a
> rework of the slave ports for now:

This progression sure is nice to see!  I like "category/portname/flavour"
origin a lot, but how is it handled in terms of packages names?

Are we going to see something like:

# pkg install myport:flavour

We shouldn't use "-" or "/" anyway, should we?  Please no fancy things
like "~" or so.  No arbitrary package names...

In OpenBSD, installing flavoured packages has been hard to script in the
past, offering a prompt whenever the main package is going to be installed.
The thing to think about here is that

# pkg install myport

Should *only* install the default port, especially with -y option.

# pkg install myport:

This *could* prompt for flavours, then.  The nice thing should be the
user doesn't have to care about flavours if that is so.

Flavours as you showed can be very simple.  Why not go the extra mile
here:

FLAVOURS=	sub1 sub2

OPTIONS_sub1=	EXPLICIT LIST OF OPTIONS
OPTIONS_sub2=	ANOTHER LIST OF OPTIONS

And keep everything as is.  No need for sub-packages?  No implied
OPTIONS_DEFAULT, no nothing.  A single line to grep and change.  :)

From this perspective, nothing changes for users of the ports tree, options
are defined by the main port and all of its flavours are neatly stored in
the Makefile.  People can still use all options during rebuild, even the
ones only used in flavours.


Cheers,
Franco