[maemo-developers] Considering /opt and MyDocs in your packages

[From: Thomas Perl]

2009/10/21 Martin Grimme <martin.grimme at gmail.com>:
> Please don't get me wrong. optify is still useful and good to have,
> but everybody should bear in mind that it's only a workaround, and
> that relocating the software to /opt would be a much safer and more
> elegant solution.

It would be helpful if you could provide instructions on how to install
apps directly into /opt without changing too much of the packaging
stuff (remember, some package maintainers have to keep the Diablo
version and maybe even a Linux Desktop version up to date as well,
so anything that avoids big differences in packaging/code helps here).

I think a subsection on this wiki page would be ideal:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Opt_Problem

> IMHO optify is OK for porting software from upstream, but if you write
> specifically for the N900, you should rather consider making your
> software easily relocatable eventually.

Adding "maemo-optify" as build-depends and to debian/rules is just
simpler and more straightforward than doing more intrusive changes.

I still hope that we get rid of maemo-optify at some point in the
future, as it's a dirty dirty hack. In the mean time, Marius is doing a
great job of fixing remaining bugs in the optify tool, even if it means
adding even more dirty hacks (symlink/directory fixing in postinst ;).

Thomas