[aur-general] Clarification for Deletion request #30701

[Xyne]

On 2021-12-28 19:52 -0800
Brett Cornwall via aur-general wrote:

>On 2021-12-29 03:27, eNV25 via aur-general wrote:
>>So in this case the package would be fine if it had a different name,
>>with a suffix like -upstream-bin, -official-bin or -static-bin?  
>
>I am working with the others to see what we want to establish going 
>forward. Thanks for the patience.

I hope that we all agree on the following rules:

* All packages built from pre-compiled sources in the AUR should retain the
  "-bin" suffix to indicate this, without exception.

* A package named <name>-bin should be functionally equivalent to one
  named <name> once built.

* Package variants should use names that identify them, e.g. a statically
  pre-compiled variant of foo should be named foo-static-bin.

The crux of the problem is which variants of official packages should be allowed
in the AUR, if any. Pre-compiled packages from upstream that use different build
options clearly have upstream support, and they avoid possibly lengthy
compilations for users who wish to use those options. I think that they should
be allowed.

However, packages that build from source using different build options should
not. The user can already obtain and modify the official PKGBUILD from ABS
without the AUR. It would only clutter the AUR to allow all possible
combinations of build options for every package, official or not. Users are
expected to be able to modify a PKGBUILD to suit their needs.

I therefore suggest that we allow correctly-named pre-compiled variants of
official packages provided that the pre-compiled binaries are built by
upstream, while still disallowing all other variants of official packages.

Regards,
Xyne

And happy new year!