a question about distribution packaging

[Ben Walton]

Hi All,

I apologize if this is the wrong list for this question.  Friendly
redirects are welcome.

[Please reply directly to me as I'm not positive that my list
subscription was accepted.]

I'm hoping that someone can provide an authoritative answer on whether
or not it is valid to ship $share_dir/locale/$LANG/LC_TIME (or
LC_NUMERIC, etc) as a symlink pointed at LC_MESSAGES.

My viewpoint after reading the docs is that the symlink at the
directory level is not valid.  While it's rare (and somewhat
discouraged) that a package would deliver a separate .mo file in the
LC_TIME directory, it is valid for the package to do so.  The
directory-level symlink would prevent distributing separate .mo files.

The alternate viewpoint is that LC_TIME symlinks haven't harmed
anything in the 6+ years they've been shipped this way, so continuing
(and expanding) the practice is acceptable.

Any guidance is appreciated.

Thanks for your time.
-Ben
--
Ben Walton
Systems Programmer - CHASS
University of Toronto
C:416.407.5610 | W:416.978.4302