On Aug 26, 2000, Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> Which reminds me: $(sysconfdir) should never include $(prefix). If
>> there's a common need for a configuration directory under $(prefix)
>> then it should be represented by $(localconfdir) or some similarly
>> named variable.
>> This is a question I would like people to discuss more
>> so we can figure out what to do.
> Well, I can repeat my standard statement when things like this come up:
> Any package which installs parts of itself somewhere other than under
> $(prefix) unless it's explicitly configured to be installed as part of the
> operating system is seriously broken.
Agreed. The package can print a warning if --sysconfdir is not set to
/etc and point the installer to the installation instructions, but it
should not force people to overwrite files in /etc. I myself install
a lot of software as a normal user, without write access to /etc, and
I often have to fix packages that try to outsmart my installation
procedures and fail due to lack of access to /etc. Ditto for packages
that insist on `chown/chgrp'ing files to certain groups.
--
Alexandre Oliva Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer aoliva@{cygnus.com, redhat.com}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me
