=net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.4 blocks <wireshark-1.6.0_rc1, which seems rather silly, as there are no slots for the wireshark package. This results in the following message (if there's a version of wireshark smaller than 1.6.0_rc1 already installed): [ebuild U ] net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.4 [1.4.9] USE="caps gtk ipv6 pcap ssl zlib -adns -ares -doc -doc-pdf -gcrypt -geoip -kerberos -lua -portaudio -profile -python (-selinux) -smi -threads" 20,962 kB [blocks B ] <net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.0_rc1 ("<net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.0_rc1" is blocking net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.4) The offending line in the wireshark-1.6.4.ebuild is the following (line #50, in the $DEPEND variable definition): !!<net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.0_rc1" Reproducible: Always
Blocks are set by developers, and for good reasons. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 394479 ***
> Blocks are set by developers, and for good reasons. Alright, I see what the problem is, and why this block was put in place. There's no need to be condescending about it (if it is a result of me saying that the solution "seems rather silly", then I apologize). All I could see was that a package was blocking an earlier version of itself, which results in not being able to install this package unless I remove the earlier version first. So now I come to the same conclusion as you did in the other bug report: is there no solution that is more elegant? Also, it'd be awesome if meanwhile, a useful message would come up when this block happens. This could be done by replacing the hard block with a pkg_pretend which checks for the prior version (using has_version). Either way, I would suggest some way of letting users know what is up. Perhaps with a news item?
