Re: [cc65] building under cygwin

On 2007-06-15, at 13:06, Greg King wrote:

>>  * prefix defaults to /usr. Most users will want it to default to
>>    /usr/local.
>
> That is a problem with a tradition:  It says that we should install  
> into
> "/usr/local/" when we build a package; and, we should install into  
> "/usr/"
> (or "/opt/") when the package already was built by someone else.
>
> Uz provides three flavors of the cc65 package:
> 1. RPM  (RedHat Package Manager)
> 2. binary
> 3. source
> He makes the pre-built RPM package install itself into "/usr/".
>
> Whichever flavor that you choose, cc65 should install in the same  
> way (so
> that you can switch between them easily).  Therefore, I made the  
> top-level
> makefile do the same thing that "packages/rpm/redhat/cc65.spec" does.

Hello and thank you for the explanations. I have to say that I  
disagree though.

Regardless of the convention agreed (there are various  
interpretations circulating), which I believe that /usr should be  
used with prebuilt packages, which are part of the official  
distribution of the system and /usr/local should be used for the  
software available outside of the official distributions only. This  
includes building from sources as well as installing packages, which  
are not part of the official distribution and can't be installed  
without resorting to adopt binary packages out of the "global" set.  
Those are in such context "local", specific to this particular machine.

On this we may agree or disagree and I know there are disagreements  
on that among other people ;-)

But... even if one takes the interpretation you presented, the  
current situation still contradicts it! On one hand you say that if  
one builds the binaries itself they should go to /usr/local and on  
the other you say that regardless if one builds from sources or get  
the binaries prebuilt ("whichever flavour that you choose") the  
binaries should install the same ?!

This is simply hard to understand. There are many projects which  
build into deb or rpm packages (are even part of the official  
distributions) and in such case they install into /usr but OTOH when  
one builds them from sources they neatly install into /usr/local.  
There is really no problem with this. What's even more - take an  
example when the official distribution is lagging behind in updates  
and force the user to grab the sources and compile the latest version  
of the particular software himself. Then it is usually very much  
desirable that the "local" build does NOT(!) overwrite the "global"  
one! This could in the worst case leave the packaging system in an  
inconsistent state but also it is often needed that both versions  
remain installed and used according to different dependencies. I had  
such situations numerous times and I know about many other people  
having them too.

Thus - making the rpm or deb target install into /usr (even if I am  
not fan of it unless the package becomes part of the global  
distribution) does not disturb that own builds from the sources may  
still install into /usr/local. In some cases I'd even say that it  
properly complements.

Cordially,

P.

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