Re: gnustep-make and NSPathUtilities patch

[Chris B. Vetter]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:20:00 +0800
Sheldon Gill <sheldon@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:56, Chris B. Vetter wrote:
> > On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 14:59:48 +0800
> > "Sheldon Gill" <sheldon@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> > You will most certainly get a veto coming the BSD fraction
> > (including me) here, as
> >   1) this should be either /usr/X11/etc/ or /usr/local/etc because
> >      it is NOT a system related config file. On BSD, /etc is _only_
> >      for operating system related configs, you (in general) are
> >      welcome to put stuff there, but an additional software package
> >      _must_not_.
> >   2) it's not called '.../GNUstep/' but '.../WindowMaker/'
> >      as in /usr/X11R6/etc/WindowMaker/
> Is your veto against the name and location of the configuration file
> or the concept of it?

Hmm, I thought that would be obvious. Using /etc/GNUstep/ would be
against the hierarchy used on BSD'ish systems.
So, no, I'm not against the whole concept, only against the location.

[...]
> My primary goal with these changes is for GNUstep to become more
> flexible with paths and installations.  I'm trying to not mandate a
> place for anything: no imposed file hierarchy for anyone.

Good :-)
My mail wasn't intended to be a rant against your proposal which overall
does sound interesting. I'm merely pointing out that there are as many
philosophies, WRT where files belong, as there are flavours of UNICES.

> > You assume too much.
> I'm trying to change the system so that it assumes _less_

Well, your suggestion to use /etc/GNUstep smells of Linux'ism and you
DID say

  "a conf file is the Unix/POSIX thing to do. The directory is
   already there for Window Maker. We just use it".

I may be there on Linux (I honestly do not know). It certainly is NOT on
the BSDs I know.

An overall, say GNUSTEP_CONFIG_DIR, that points to the actual location,
and a configure switch during installation of -make for example would be
a good idea in your scenario.

-- 
Chris