Re: [Gnustep-cvs] r31321 - in /tools/make/trunk: ChangeLog GNUstep.conf.in configure configure.ac

[David Chisnall]

Hi Stef,

A couple of points:

On 16 Sep 2010, at 16:26, Stef Bidi wrote:

> I agree with this statement.  It's a fact that GNUstep doesn't play well with 
> the FHS used by, pretty much, every single *nix variant.  

FHS is a Linux 'standard', not a *NIX standard.  Most *NIX variants use 
something vaguely similar, but none use FHS.  For example, on *BSD, GNUstep's 
decision to put GNUstep.conf in /etc/GNUstep/ is incorrect - this location 
should only be used for stuff that is in the base system.  Third-party 
configuration stuff should go in /usr/local/etc.

> Sure, we've discussed that kind of thing before and there was a strong 
> argument that editing such files is intrusive, and system dependent since the 
> appropriate files vary, and generally somewhat complex (you need to remove 
> old edits before making a new one) and error-prone.  I'm sure we could do it, 
> but using native conventions seems simpler so far.

More to the point, we should encourage packagers to make the modification in 
the way that their OS recommends.  

> That solution is just wrong.  There's no reason why system files should be 
> touched when installing a piece of software.  Bash uses the /etc/profile.d/ 
> directory and if you're going to do something like what is being proposed, a 
> file should be added to that dir instead of appending /etc/profile directly.  
> In any case, this is, again, is just a work around to the actual problem.

No it doesn't.  bash uses /etc/profile.  A lot of Linux distributions set this 
up to source profile.d/*, but that's all implemented in /etc/profile by the 
distribution, it's not a bash feature.  

David