I can't really find any relevant changes but net-im/slack-bin has been renamed to net-im/slack in this commit https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/commit/4f24389a363ac207d3572d67b9d1af6b7e279428 I'm not sure why this was done and what was discussed and after searching I haven't been able to find a recent policy change either, but why are -bin postfixes removed from binary packages? It seems to me that binary packages were always postfixed with -bin so the package should be called net-im/slack-bin. How would one otherwise know a package is a binary? If I'm searching for a package in the gentoo tree and it has no -bin postfix I'm assuming it's a source based package, which for a source based distro seems rather obvious. So seeing a net-im/slack package tells me it's a source based package which seems odd given that it's a proprietary application. Checking the ebuild indeed confirms it's a binary package. Reproducible: Always
(In reply to Simon from comment #0) > I can't really find any relevant changes but net-im/slack-bin has been > renamed to net-im/slack in this commit > https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/commit/ > 4f24389a363ac207d3572d67b9d1af6b7e279428 > I'm not sure why this was done and what was discussed and after searching I > haven't been able to find a recent policy change either, but why are -bin > postfixes removed from binary packages? > It seems to me that binary packages were always postfixed with -bin so the > package should be called net-im/slack-bin. Best current practice is to use the upstream name, unless it would be ambiguous between a source-based and a binary package (so for example, Google Chrome is www-client/google-chrome, not www-client/google-chrome-bin): https://devmanual.gentoo.org/ebuild-writing/file-format/index.html#binary-packages This policy was clarified in a discussion in the gentoo-dev mailing list in 2016. There are still some older packages that don't follow it. > How would one otherwise know a package is a binary? > If I'm searching for a package in the gentoo tree and it has no -bin postfix > I'm assuming it's a source based package, which for a source based distro > seems rather obvious. So seeing a net-im/slack package tells me it's a > source based package which seems odd given that it's a proprietary > application. Checking the ebuild indeed confirms it's a binary package. The package name is really a bad place to store such meta information. If at all, it should go to metadata.xml. As a matter of fact, there was a GLEP pre-draft for this, but it never made it to the draft stage: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Antarus/Package_Tags
No action items in this bug. The package name has been adjusted to current requirements.
Can this change be reconsidered? Since there is nothing in place yet to store information on whether a package is a binary package or not, removing the -bin postfix is removing functionality/useful information without any way to get this information back. Assuming another way than the name of a package is to be used for showing a package is a binary package removing the -bin postfixes should only be done when this new way of determining whether a package is a binary is implemented.
About the policy, see comment #1. Also, once a package has been moved, it cannot be moved back: https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/7/pms.html#x1-360004.4.4 "Any name that has appeared as the origin of a move must not be reused in the future."
> Also, once a package has been moved, it cannot be moved back: https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/7/pms.html#x1-360004.4.4 "Any name that has appeared as the origin of a move must not be reused in the future." O, wow, I wasn't aware of that. That's even more reason not to rename any -bin packages until a working alternative solution for identifying them is in place then, because there's no way to go back.
