[opensuse-packaging] Re: [opensuse-factory] Update on configuration location below /usr
Dear Manfred, dear Richard, Am Dienstag, 30. Juli 2019, 15:01:46 CEST schrieb Richard Brown:
On Mon, 2019-07-29 at 18:54 +0200, Manfred Hollstein wrote:
I'd prefer /usr/config or /usr/cfg over /usr/etc. Aside from the collision in usage, "etc" is a terrible name for the configuration directory ("etc" was a catch-all directory originally, which is why so many executable shell scripts were in there...), and we can do better than that in 2019.
+1 for /usr/etc for obvious reasons: everyone coming from a *NIX background *knows* what /etc is and probably can deduct, what /usr/etc is. Even if you believe it was a terrible name, it *is* a name known to a lot of people, at least
from
a generation before 2019 or maybe more ;) Even M$ adopted it... (do you know where their /etc/hosts equivalent lives ;) ? )
+1 for /usr/etc from me also.
It's important that we establish the relationship between /etc and /usr/etc, and that's easiest done with reflecting that in their names.
Well, allow me to bring an answer from Thorsten to your attention (as of Sun, 28 Jul 2019 10:38:07 +0200):
Hmm, do you have any pointer on such distributions and their usage pattern of /usr/etc? I wasn't able to find something, that really matters in this regard.
OSTree is using /usr/etc to store data for their three-way-diff-merge of configuration files. On *BSD, users have to edit the files in /usr/etc, while in our case, this should be "read-only", and user have to create the changes in /etc. There are distributions who did the "UsrMerge" by moving /etc to /usr/etc and makeing /etc a symlink to /usr
I don't care much about *BSD layout, but since OSTree seems an interesting project, as well as the last point renders this approach problematic at least. So he concludes:
What would happen if we choose /usr/etc and other distributions cannot follow us? 1. we are the only one who are doing, and will always be different 2. The others will come up with another standard, and either we are
alone/different, or have to do the work a second time.
I don't like any of this options.
Let me add: we should not interfere with libostree based projects (which would make libostree based projects unfeasible for our platform, especially since some Fedora-based projects adapt this already). So this is enough evidence of not using /usr/etc, no matter how much we all agree on this choice otherwise, isn't it? Cheers, Pete -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+owner@opensuse.org
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Hans-Peter Jansen