[aur-general] Meta packages in AUR?

[carstene1ns]

Am 04.09.2014 um 07:29 schrieb Hugo Osvaldo Barrera:
> An example of these "meta" packages is "meta-group-base-devel", which is an "empty"
> package that has all the packages in "base-devel" as dependencies.
> This helps me keep things like "pacman -Qen" short and readable, and also make
> sure that all my machines have base-devel entirely installed.
I think this is a special purpose package that likely nobody would use
as the only real benefit is hiding the base-devel package group.
If the other packages also have only special purpose, it may be better
to keep them for yourself.

Most of the functionality of meta-packages can already be done with
package groups, so it is not needed to create them at all:
If you want to group AUR packages, talk to the Maintainers where
sensible. For example for related packages of big projects (e.g.
openstack, android dev packages, ...). Also for extensions/plugins/addon
packages, where already a group exists in the repositories (e.g. I could
add my py3status package to the i3-wm group). Locally it is possible to
add groups to PKGBUILDs with tools like customizepkg.

> Is it ok to upload/share these? The AUR guidelines don't explicitly forbid
> these [1], but I want to make sure there's not precedent or issues with these.

My opinion is: The reason to provide a package on the AUR is so that
others can use them and benefit from it. If you think somebody benefits
from your meta-packages, go ahead and upload them.

best regards,
carstene1ns

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 473 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/attachments/20140904/e6041cd2/attachment-0001.asc>