On Sat, Jul 30, 2005 at 03:52:44AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 30, 2005 at 12:00:32PM +0200, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote:
> > Listing Perl, Python and Emacs here is totally wrong (and I don't know
> > enough about Java packaging to speak about it). Perl is the best
> > example: Architecture-dependend data is stored in /usr/lib/perl{/,5/},
> > arch-indep data in /usr/share/perl.
>
> Not 100% true; /usr/lib/perl{/,5/} contain architecture-dependent binary
> modules, *along with any architecture-independent wrappers that accompany
> them*.
Brendan O'Dea has said things along these lines before, I know, but I'll
repeat it: those wrappers are in most cases rather tightly bound to the
precise interfaces exported by the architecture-dependent binary
modules. The fact that they happen to be expressed in a form which is
the same on all architectures doesn't make them truly
architecture-independent, as architectures with different versions of
the binary modules would generally need different versions of the
wrappers too.
Files are put in /usr/share because one might want to mount that
directory on multiple machines. If putting something on a hypothetically
NFS-mounted /usr/share means that you have to keep /usr/lib precisely in
sync across all the machines that mount it for fear of breakage, you
have to ask whether this is really a beneficial thing to do.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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