Mike Frysinger wrote: > as a reminder, NEVER utilize USE=pic in your package unless you know > exactly what it's for and you're sure you need it
I figured this use flag should be used to ensure libraries are built as PIC (i.e. conform to the relevant ABI). This is a common problem on the media packages for example which often have non-PIC x86 assembler (sometimes these are bugs, other times it's deliberate to get every ounce of performance). I've been mooting the use of 'use pic' to decide configure options and conditionally apply patches (where the latter would reduce performance). This was my reading of the description in use.desc. However it has been indicated to me recently that USE=pic shouldn't be used for this. If the latter is correct, perhaps the description of the use flag could be improved. On a related note, USE=pie could be clarified as well (relocated to use.local.desc against sys-lang/gcc perhaps). As a general comment, I think clear use flag descriptions in *.desc are preferable to rules buried somewhere in the morass of developer documentation. I searched briefly for policy rules on USE=pic but didn't find any. "briefly" is the key word here; I'm not about to spend hours reading the aforementioned morass every time I want to know whether I'm using the right USE keyword or not; I expect to find clear answers in use*.desc. Kev. -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
