I’m suffering from the fact that users can distinguish packages containing binaries just by eye. There is no mechanism to allow/ignore such packages. For license restrictions we have ‘package.license/’ whitelist.
I figure out the following binary entities in portage’s packages that (to my point of view) need to be clearly defined as BINARY: 1. *-bin packages (maven-bin, icedtea-bin) 2. firmware packages (linux-firmware) 3. purely binary packages that are installed without any notion they are binary or source packages just like Ubuntu’s ones (app-office/upwork) 4. packages with pre-compiled bytecode/objectcode that are installed like packages in #3. (geogebra, many packages with .jar files in dev-java/*) 5. packages with ‘-binary’ USE-flag. Semantics of ‘-binary’ differs: (seabios) binary : Use official upstream pre-built binaries (ghc) binary : Install the binary version directly, rather than using it to build the source version. (scala) binary : Install from (Gentoo-compiled) binary instead of building from sources. Set this when you run out of memory during build. (etc...) 6. packages that need binaries to compile/bootstrap (sbcl) 7. to be continued... I guess #1 semantics has no control. Such packages may be installed as a dependency without warnings they are binaries. #5 semantics are not clear (defined in manifest.xml) The only binary entities under users’ control are: 1. packages from “PKGDIR” installed with ‘emerge --usepkg’ 2. packages with -binary USE-flag I wonder if Gentoo’s devs can do something with the problem. I think it’s problem in source-based Linux distribution.
