From: Anders Johansson
GodzillaEatsSpam.rpm from the web, he or she will usually find it to be non-relocatable, won't (or can't) go beyond installation defaults to take the trouble of moving to /usr/local.
Then I suggest using rpm2cpio and manually installing the software. Or finding an LSB-compliant RPM. Yes, one should do that. But it is unenforceable.
Am I wrong in thinking that, when the upgrade encounters /usr/bin/GodzillaEatsSpam, it (conceptually) asks:
0. Am I working interactively? y/n 1. Am I instructed to upgrade GodzillaEatsSpam? If yes, continue. If no... 2. ...Is GodzillaEatsSpam in the rpm database? If no, continue. If yes... 3. ...Am I about to annihilate files which GodzillaEatsSpam needs? If no, continue. If yes... 4. If I'm working interactively, warn user about imminent annihilation and ask instructions.
It could do that, but under the LSB it doesn't have to, and you shouldn't rely on such functionality. Anders Good point: it doesn't have to. (And I don't rely upon it ;) But I fear that whichever distribution can achieve painless upgrades first will blow the others away. In that contest, the enormous variety of applications which SuSE offers is actually a potential liability. jim