Klaus Heinz <k.heinz.okt.fuenf@onlinehome.de> writes:

> It was easy to add an option "gimp-plugin" which enables support for GIMP
> (and is set as default) so I can add
> 
>   PKG_OPTIONS.sane-frontends=     -gimp-plugin
> 
> to my mk.conf file.
> 
> Should I apply this change to sane-frontends? How about the name of the
> option "gimp-plugin"? I also considered "gimp", "sane-frontends-gimp"
> and "sane-frontends-gimp-plugin".

I'd just call it gimp.

> Are there other packages where it would make sense to disable building
> plugins or general support for GIMP?

If a lot of people might want something w/o gimp, because it is really
useful standalone, then it might make sense.

For graphics/gimp-ufraw (now standalone also), it just requires gimp.
This is because in my judgement anyone doing raw conversion will want
to have gimp around, and you need a high cpu/memory system to run
ufraw anyway.


There are two approaches to optional components, and the one you
discuss is the easier one to implement.  The other, which seems
preferable among the tech-pkg crowd, is to make a sand-frontends-gimp
package which just installs the gimp stuff, and have sane-frontends
not include gimp.  Thus one can add the second package later and have
sane sane binary packages.  This seems to involve patching install
targets in makefiles or things like that, or overriding them.

But, absent the 2-package split being done, given that I'd expect most
people to want the gimp plugin, having an option to disable it seems
like progress over the status quo.

-- 
        Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>