Re: GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN

[Nicola Pero]

> How would the default locations be defined ... I don't think we want
> the default location for the stuff currently installed in /usr/
> GNUstep/System or /usr/GNUstep/Local to suddenly be ~/GNUstep

The default location would always be LOCAL. :-)


> How would that behavior be defined ... eg how do we specify whether
> the SYSTEM domain is /usr rather than /usr/GNUstep/System?
> Simply by a configure-time option to gnustep-make to define the
> filesystem layout make is to use?

We can decide, but I would imagine that when you configure gnustep-make
you specify the type of filesystem structure to use ...

Presumably you could always manually override on the command-line the
installation variables if you know what you're doing. ;-) ...

... But otherwise, gnustep-make will know from how it was configured if
that gnustep
installation is using a native filesystem (of what type) or a GNUstep
filesystem
etc.


> I'm  not sure I understand ...
> Your examples are setting the domain from the command line, but I
> would have thought that doing it inside the makefile would be common.
>
> That is to say, most packages would want to be installed in the LOCAL
> domain, core packages in the SYSTEM domain, and new code that users
> par developing would probably want to be in the USER domain by
> default ... but you wouldn't want to have to remember to set a
> command-line option to control that every time you typed 'make'.

The idea would be that ...

 1. stuff that comes pre-installed in your system goes into System

 2. stuff that you install yourself goes into Local

 3. stuff that you install yourself for yourself only goes into User
(keeping in mind that User won't work with Unix-type filesystems)

So, the idea is that anything you compile manually goes into Local
unless explicitly told otherwise (and consistency is good!). :-)

Distributions would of course install the core packages into System ...
and could also install a lot of other packages into System! ;-)

But if you compile it yourself, by definition it shouldn't go into System.

I guess the key concept is that the installation domain is decided
by the packager, not by the software author!  This is why it shouldn't
be set in the GNUmakefile. ;-)

In other words ... the difference between System and Local is *not* that
"important" packages go in System while "optional" packages go in
Local.  This attitude just results in all authors forcing their own
package [which of course is really important in the author's
opinion ;-)] to install into System. ;-)

I would go as far as saying that even gnustep-base should have no
GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN set.  If I compile all the system manually
myself, I wouldn't see anything wrong in having everything end up
into Local.  Even gnustep-make could go into Local without special
losses, so by default it should probably go in there.

Suggestions welcome though, if we strictly want gnustep-make and gnustep-base
to always be in System, we can easily add GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN in
the GNUmakefile ... setting it on the command-line will always override
the value set in the GNUmakefile.  So it's not a problem. ;-)

Thanks