Subject: A policy for /var
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Rene Hexel <rh@netbsd.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 07/27/2002 17:30:09
  I would like some opinions on pkg/13058 (rpm using /var):

  This one, in fact, may stand for a number of other PRs/packages, not
just rpm.  IMHO, software that creates/updates/uses changing databases
and other transient files below /var is fine (after all, that's what it
is for according to hier(7)).  In the case of rpm I'd prefer something
like "/var/db/rpm" over the current "/var/pkg/lib/rpm" directory (but
that's a different issue).

  What I'm getting at is that as long as packages don't install PLISTed
files there, the use of /var is okay with me.  Other people seem to have
a different opinion here and that's (part of) the reason why we keep
seeing PRs such as this.

  The solution is to establish some sort of policy here.  We can either
decide that the use of /var is fine, or we could decide that something
like ${PREFIX}/var should be used instead.  If we can't agree on a
unified solution, what about a PKG_VARDIR similar to PKG_SYSCONFDIR?

 Cheers
     ,
  Rene