Re: Regarding MESSAGEs during pkg_add installation of meta packages

[David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 08:28:49AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
 > >>The key point is:
 > >>
 > >>  It should therefore be used only in exceptional circumstances where
 > >>  lasting negative consequences would result from someone not reading
 > >>  it.
 > >
 > > And even then that would arguably considered a fundamental bug in the
 > > package.  Many, many users of pkgsrc packages install them via
 > > configuration management (ansible, salt, whatever), and they won't get
 > > to see any of these messages _at all_.
 > 
 > I would agree with that.  Earlier, I was attempting to construct text
 > that would pass consensus.
 > 
 > I'd be happy with just deciding that MESSAGE (now) is something thath
 > should not exist, and then entirely removing support for it, and
 > bulk-rming all MESSAGE files, after giving people who think they might
 > have README.pkgsrc content a chance to move to that.

I have one reservation about that. Well, two.

1. Sometimes there are cases where it's fairly important to include a
message of the form "When updating from 2.x to 3.x you need to
re-reticulate all the splines or thingy-gui won't start". The current
MESSAGE infrastructure is a poor way to handle this. However, I don't
think we want to replace it with _no_ way to handle this. Ideally
these would be indexed by version number so they only get displayed
when applicable.

2. Moving the assorted glop that exists in most MESSAGEs to a
README.pkgsrc is fine, but when that stuff matters it's probably a
good idea to specifically point users at it. This applies, for
example, when you need to install other things to get a properly
functional package. (Whether such cases should exist is another
debate; for the time being they do.) The same alternative notice
system as (1) should serve. Ideally these notices would also be
indexed such that they only appear when installing for the first time.


Also, there are some things where the default config you need has to
go in $HOME, so dealing with that problem isn't quite as simple as
just using CONF_FILES.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost