On Tue, 15 Dec 1998, Curt Sampson wrote:

: > Curt, considering I've completely butchered this, could you give me some
: > input?  ;)
: 
: It's hardly butchered. :-) In fact, it's pretty similar to my
: original proposal. The major change has to do with moving $PREFIX
: so that it does not cover etc and var, and adding a configuration
: directory. 

Also, please note the move from /pkg to /usr/pkg, and the reasoning I
explained for this.

: Also, I want to stress again the importance of having One True
: Configuration Directory on a system, regardless of where programs
: come from.

Very well; I'll edit to mention only /etc.

:     $PREFIX/whatever
:     /etc
:     /var
: 
: No problem, except how do we set things up so we can use something
: other than /etc and /var when debugging PLISTS and whatnot?

PLISTs will not contain entries for /etc and /var except to do the
"copy-if-not-there" action in /etc and "@exec mkdir" for /var.  This is
already done for many pkgs.

: Basically, it looks like we would have to drop this requirement:
: 
: > 3. It must be possible to have the package system install files in a
: >    separate area, where they are not mixed in with the standard system
: >    binaries.

Huh!?  Why would it "have" to be dropped?

Not only should this not be dropped, this should remain the default(!) as is
currently is.

: If we do decide to drop it, then we look at using /pkg -> /usr 
: rather than /pkg -> / to get the integrated packages.

`Reread the v2 proposal'; this is long since written.

: I'm not sure I understand this. Those who do /pkg -> /usr/pkg didn't
: want system binaries replaced, right?

No.  See v2 proposal and how it handles this via move-and-symlink.

Packages which have an _intent_ to replace the functionality of system
binaries (BIND4, Sendmail 8.9, ...) should not, and _cannot_, require that
the user symlink /usr/pkg to /usr.  This requires a separate scheme whereby
such pkgs know how to move the system binaries out of the way no matter
where the replacement ones exist on the system.

: The correct answer, I think, is `It's not worth the effort.' Some
: packages will work just fine with no host-specific files; others
: will fail in part and give obvious error messages (with ssh, for
: example, it looks to me as if the client would run, but the server
: wouldn't). Others will fail in full. We should supply documentation
: explaining what needs to be done to `complete' an install in terms
: of /etc and /var (generally just copying files from /pkg/usr/share/examples
: or whatever that directory turns out to be).

Doc for `HOWTO-share-pkgs' would probably be best here.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)