What would the correct way be to handle a program with a PID file being built to a prefix directory?

[Michael Lueck]

Greetings,

What would the correct way be to handle a program with a PID file being built 
to a prefix directory?

That is to say:

Prefix, building the program with non root permissions to be run in the context 
of a user's home directory.

PID file, generally defaults to /var/run, however in this case permissions are 
not granted to /var/run. One could assume ~/var/run would be the proper place 
for the PID file.

Building a certain OSS/FS app fails when being built with a prefix specified, as /var/run is still assumed for the PID file. I hacked the source code to obtain ability to target ~/var/run for the PID 
file, and the program works as expected.

I would like to contribute a patch back to the OSS/FS project to gracefully accommodate both building with a prefix and locating the PID file somewhere appropriate in the case the program was built 
with prefix specified.

What would be suggested in this case?

I am thankful,

--
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/