Mailing List Archive

On Sat, 2023-12-30 at 00:41 +0100, Jonas Stein wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> we have many local gpg useflags which basically just enable gpg.
> Should we merge these to one global useflag?
>
> Additionally we have a few gpgme useflags.
> See also https://bugs.gentoo.org/679634
>
> What are your ideas?
>

We have also have a bunch of USE=pgp and USE=openpgp, both of which are
more correct than USE=gpg.

--
Best regards,
Micha? Górny

> > we have many local gpg useflags which basically just enable gpg.
> > Should we merge these to one global useflag?
> >
> > Additionally we have a few gpgme useflags.
> > See also https://bugs.gentoo.org/679634
> >
> > What are your ideas?
> >
>
> We have also have a bunch of USE=pgp and USE=openpgp, both of which are
> more correct than USE=gpg.

Yeah, typical case of "formally correct thing being way more difficult to
understand than colloquially practical thing" ...


--
Andreas K. H?ttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, comrel, toolchain, base-system, perl, libreoffice)
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Dilfridge

>>>>> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023, Andreas K Huettel wrote:

>> > we have many local gpg useflags which basically just enable gpg.
>> > Should we merge these to one global useflag?
>> >
>> > Additionally we have a few gpgme useflags.
>> > See also https://bugs.gentoo.org/679634
>> >
>> > What are your ideas?
>> >
>>
>> We have also have a bunch of USE=pgp and USE=openpgp, both of which are
>> more correct than USE=gpg.

> Yeah, typical case of "formally correct thing being way more difficult to
> understand than colloquially practical thing" ...

So, how about using gpg as the flag's name and mentioning OpenPGP in its
description?

On 30/12/2023 16.54, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>>> we have many local gpg useflags which basically just enable gpg.
>>> Should we merge these to one global useflag?
>>>
>>> Additionally we have a few gpgme useflags.
>>> See also https://bugs.gentoo.org/679634
>>>
>>> What are your ideas?
>>>
>>
>> We have also have a bunch of USE=pgp and USE=openpgp, both of which are
>> more correct than USE=gpg.

I am always confused when people use "gpg" to talk about OpenPGP.


> Yeah, typical case of "formally correct thing being way more difficult to
> understand than colloquially practical thing" ...

It is only a matter of time until the more users of gnupg-alternative
libraries, like sequoia or librnp, appear. USE=gpg is probably already
sometimes a misnomer, and will definitely be one if we make it a global
USE flag and there are packages that declare it without pulling in gpg.

- Flow

>>> we have many local gpg useflags which basically just enable gpg.
>>> Should we merge these to one global useflag?
>>>
>>> Additionally we have a few gpgme useflags.
>>> See also https://bugs.gentoo.org/679634
>>>
>>> What are your ideas?
>>>
>>
>> We have also have a bunch of USE=pgp and USE=openpgp, both of which are
>> more correct than USE=gpg.
>
> Yeah, typical case of "formally correct thing being way more difficult to
> understand than colloquially practical thing" ...

You are right.
I would prefer the formally correct "OpenPGP" after reading a bit more.
This is how it is named in the RFCs [1] and this is what we mean.

If we use either gpg or pgp it will raise new questions and confuse the
users.

It is better to write 4 additional characters and make it simple and
precise.

We can explain all details in the description then.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4880

--
Best,
Jonas