Hi, in Sabayon we are providing our users kde-l10n split ebuilds (as well as openoffice-l10n ones) since a long time ago. The split has many advantages and follows this rationale:
- Gentoo seems to follow the rule to not split packages over what upstream does, the inverse condition (merge more packages into one) should be respected too. - Gentoo is about choice, providing this alternative way can be a plus and introduce several advantages for users: source world advantages: - it makes possible to add/remove kde-l10n packages without having to recompile all the localizations every time - "backward compatibility" kept through kde-l10n-meta ebuild - ebuild maintenance requirements don't grow with ebuilds' number growth (5 lines bash script does enough magic on version bumps) - scalable disk space requirements without the annoying recompilation phase binary world advantages: - ability to provide split packages makes possible to support all the languages without forcing users to install a 500+ mb package - reduced install time - reduced disk space - improved administration power and TCO (add/remove support for a language becomes trivial) - scalable disk space requirements Invalid complaints ( :P ): - improved maintenance costs: it's not true, scripting exists for a reason - There are USE flags: use flags tuning is not possible in binary worlds and always forces users to recompile (which is not always possible) Reference ebuilds: - http://svn.sabayonlinux.org/overlay/kde-base Quick and dirty update script example: - http://svn.sabayonlinux.org/overlay/kde-base/do-kde-l10n.sh Example of kde-l10n-meta ebuild: - http://svn.sabayonlinux.org/overlay/kde-base/kde-l10n-meta/kde-l10n-meta-4.2.2.ebuild Opinions? -- Fabio Erculiani Sabayon Linux - http://www.sabayon.org My life, my stories. Itsme - http://www.itsme.it
