Another question regarding recipe/coding style (based on actual
examples I run across in existing code bases).

In one vendor's layer, in file "lighttpd_1.4.%.bbappend", I read:

RDEPENDS_${PN} += " \
lighttpd-module-alias \
lighttpd-module-auth \
lighttpd-module-cgi \
lighttpd-module-compress \
lighttpd-module-evasive \
lighttpd-module-evhost \
... sizable snip of many ore modules ...

There's little question that this is being used to incorporate a
number of optional modules into the final image, but I'm assuming
that this is really not the recommended way to do it.

The YP reference manual defines RDEPENDS as identifying "other
packages that must be installed in order for the package to function
correctly," which suggests that it's the base recipe that should
define actual runtime dependencies.

I would have thought that the natural way to do the above would
be to either use IMAGE_INSTALL_append or (my preference) define
a packagegroup that includes all those packages, then simply
include the packagegroup.

In short, am I reasonable in assuming that bbappend files should
not (ab)use RDEPENDS in the above way?

rday