[Slackbuilds-users] OPTIONAL field [was: qemu/spice-gtk and usbredir]

[Christoph Willing]

On 06/11/16 08:15, Andrzej Telszewski wrote:
> On 05/11/16 23:06, Daniel Prosser wrote:
>> Say, for example, that someone was installing ffmpeg, which was brought
>> up as an example earlier. It needs the optional dependencies to be
>> explicitly enabled when running the script. Let's say average user Joe
>> is using an automated tool that says "Hey, these are optional
>> dependencies. Which ones do you want to install?" He could go ahead and
>> choose a bunch of them, but they wouldn't be enabled when ffmpeg was
>> subsequently built. Confusion would ensue. Even if the installer said to
>> look at the README first, he'd have to go and figure out what each
>> optional dependency does, how to enable it, and manually run the ffmpeg
>> SlackBuild script anyway. So what was the point of the automation? In my
>> opinion, it would add a lot of work and confusion with little benefit.
>
> You got the point.
>
> OPTIONAL field is going to be useless or confusing at best, if the
> maintainers won't be willing to change their SlackBuilds.
>
We could go on like this for a long time.

I think now would be a good time to provide a full example of what 
changes would be required for a particular and related SlackBuilds. 
Could you find a SlackBuild that has a number of optional requirements, 
one of which should be ffmpeg (itself with some options to be enabled); 
then show how you envisage the respective .info & README* files should 
be modified. A full example like this would give a clearer indication of 
what changes would be needed by individual maintainers (although for now 
glossing over backend changes that would also be required).

chris