It seems like occasionally, ebuilds are changed without bumping up the rev numbers. This leads to situations where asking "which version are you using" doesn't tell you everything you need when helpig someone, and the only thing you can say is "try re-emerging". Also, when trying to stay up to date, it is frustrating if things don't update even if an ebuild might support a new use flag. Since the ebuild file used seems to be saved in /var/db/pkg it seems it would be easy to check for every installed package that is up to date, whether the contents of the ebuild in the portage tree match the contents of the file in the /var/db/pkg tree. If there is a difference, some indication should be made (perhaps only with a special flag). Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
ebuilds arent bumped when there's no reason to ... rev bumps happen when the installed version of the package is different ... if a change only fixes compiling bugs, then theres no reason to ver bump it ... in terms of adding more features, well thats up to the developer to determine whether a bump is needed ... most people just run `emerge world -u` just to see if theres a new version, not to see if functionality/features have been added ... thats the policy and thats pretty the end of it afaik ... if you have issues with a package that you feel should have been bumped then talk to the developer who made the changes
