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Re: [Groff] wrong install path of man and info files


From: Ralf Corsepius
Subject: Re: [Groff] wrong install path of man and info files
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:05:49 +0200

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 06:35, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> > Technically, I for one consider /usr/local/share to be very
> > questionable in general, because, traditionally, "/usr/local" is a
> > "machine-local" file system, which is not supposed to be
> > network-mountable.  The motivation to introduce "/usr/share" was
> > "making certain types of files accessible to machines of different
> > architectures in a heterogenious network.
> 
> Whatever the reason for using /usr/local is, it is natural IMHO to
> give it the same structure of /usr. 
No. 

Installations to /usr and / are special cases. These are the cases
covered by the FHS.

Neither installations to /usr nor /usr/local are covered by autoconf.
(configure --prefix=/usr installs man pages to /usr/share/man)

/usr/local is another special case, and intentionally is hardly  covered
by the FHS.

>  We already have
> /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib as pendants to /usr/include and
> /usr/lib, so why not /usr/local/share/...?
The only reason I can imagine is "consistency" with /usr as mandated by
the FHS, but ...
* autoconf does not install to /usr/share/man
* technically, /usr/local/share is nonsense.

>   I can't think of any good
> reason (except backwards compatibility) to make a difference.

Let me reiterate:
* /usr is a special case. /usr/share is supposed to be sharable across
networks.
* /usr/local is a special case. It is not supposed to be shareable
across networks.
* /usr and / are vendor specific case. This  is out of autoconf's
control. Packagers are supposed to explictly pass configure options
conforming to their vendors' conventions.
* PREFIX/share/[man|info] contradicts package-wise installations
(configure --prefix=/opt/<package>).

> > [...] the "FHS" is just some "arbitrary vendor's convention" [...]
> 
> I think you are greatly exaggerating, aren't you?
No, I am completely serious about it.

The FHS  some extend has been adopted by Linux and other OpenSource OS
vendors, but is basically meaningless on most other OSes.

Also note that the FHS does *not* mandate /usr/local/share/man.

> > If the GNU-Standards *mandate* PREFIX/share/man and
> > PREFIX/share/info, autoconf should be changed.  If not, I don't see
> > any need to change autoconf.
> 
> As Paul Eggert notes in another mail, it seems that autoconf will fix
> this soon.
The authority to change such defaults is the GNU-Standards, anything
else (personal opinions or standards by whom ever) are meaningless.

Besides this, technically such a change would break a lot.

Ralf






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