Re: GNUstep.sh / env sanity patches

[John Davidorff Pell]

On 19 Aug 2004, at 02:07, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
> I was saying that it's not possible to rely on relative paths to 
> locate resources ... since people can install applications wherever 
> they want, the resources those applications need won't be in fixed 
> locations relative to the applications.
> I think it should be obvious that unless we constrain users to only 
> install applications in fixed locations, we cannot make assumptions 
> about the locations of shared resources based on the application 
> locations.

ok, I get what you're saying, but I think that between relative paths 
for GNUstep installed stuff and LD_LIBRARY_PATH for user relocatable 
applications, everything should be covered. 
/GNUstep/System/Tools/cookie should link to 
../Library/Libraries/libwhatever.so, which end up being 
/GNUstep/System/Library/Libraries/libwhatever.so.

~/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MyApp should link to 
../Library/Libraries/libmuffin.so, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH will link it to 
~/Library/Libraries/libmuffin.so, or 
~/Applications/MyApp.app/Library/Libraries/libmuffin.so, or 
/GNUstep/System/Library/Libraries/libmuffin.so. ~/Tools/bakery would 
link to ../Library/.... etc. Does this make sense?

People install applications wherever they want, but they do not split 
up an application bindle arbitrarily.

> This discussion has therefore been about deciding the simplest way to 
> determine the locations of resources ... our standards put them in 
> system, network, local, and user domains.  within each domain we have 
> a standardised layout so that things can be located within the domain. 
> The defaults system is a slight exception in that some people have not 
> wanted defaults stored at a fixed location in the user domain.  The 
> idea is to use a simple config file to specify where the defaults 
> database and each domain is located.  That means the only bit of 
> information an application has to be told is the location of the 
> config file (and LD_LIBRARY_PATH).  If applications are launched by 
> means of a script/tool (like openapp), all that tool has to be told is 
> the location of the config file.


I find it rather stupid to be putting the defaults database outside of 
~/Library (or ~/GNUstep/Library). I do NOT think that this 
functionality should be supported because it leads to unneccessary 
kludge in the system and leads pretend power users thinking that 
GNUstep should be as flexible in everything, and by extention should 
honor the system paths, and ditch the whole concept a bundles and 
resources grouped together etc.

JP


----
It's all fun and games 'til someone writes to a NULL pointer!

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