Hi,
currently we have a lot of packages in the portage tree that provide both server and client implementations of a package, big things like mysql and samba but also small stuff like telnet-bsd. Often people don't need the server part of these packages, but currently there is no way to disable them. Some packages have splitted the package, but this is IMO not a good idea in general, as often the ebuilds are the same except for one or two commands. So my idea (as well as others) is to add a new "server" USE flag that controls wether the server part of a package is build. This idea is outlined in more details on bug 12499, which also had the idea of a "client" USE flag, so that it's possible to only build the libs or only the server, however I think that such a flag will create more problems than benefits (see the bug for explanations). So, I'd like to get some opinions/comments from people on this idea, as this is coming up about every month and there wasn't really any action to solve this issue.
I think that it has the potential to work. The problem is that if someone were to emerge a package with USE="client -server" and then they decide they want the server part, they have to re-emerge the entire package. Not too big of an issue, but an issue nonetheless.
-- Andrew Gaffney
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