Re: changing the default ghostscript type

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> writes:

>> I think that's probably okay for packages that needs ghostscript
>> via DEPENDS (e.g. if they just need `gs') but I am not sure if it
>> can be problematic for packages that includes
>> print/ghostscript/buildlink3.mk.
>>
>> Apart that the PKG_OPTIONS.gs_type will then not reflect the actual
>> reality and leads to possible surprises (okay, `pkg_info
>> ghostscript-{a,}gpl' will then reveal the truth :)).
>>
>> For these reasons I think it would be better to avoid `step 2'.
>
> That's a good point that I had not considered.
>
> I guess it's a tradeoff between users being able to install the
> unmaintained GPL3 version (if that's what they want) with minimal
> hassle, vs the problems caused by the unintended switch.   But I tend to
> avoiding wrong things that will cause unknown future trouble.

On further thought, we have 2 cases:

  people who leave the option as is.  These people will have the
  installed package, what bl3 is chosen from source, and what bl3 is
  chosen in the bulk builds all match.  So fuzziness in what is accepted
  will be of at most theoretical importance.

  people who want to change the option.  Here, people (who want
  ghostscript at all) have two approaches.  One is to set it in mk.conf
  and rebuild everything.  Then their world will match and all is fine,
  fuzzy match or no.  The other approach is to manually install the
  ghostscript-notdefault package and install, possibly forcing, the
  ghostscript package.  With fuzzy match, "pkg_add
  ghostscript-nondefault" followed by "pkg_add foo" should just work.
  Yes, one is off the rails of consistency, but the only way out is to
  build packages oneself (or to find packages that a kindred spirit has
  built).


So we are really talking about people who choose to use binary packages
and non-default ghostscript, and thus have an unavoidable consistency
problem.  The question is then the benefit from ease of installation vs
the downside of not having been put on notice by typing -f.

Thoughts from others?