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

[From: Mohammed Hassan]

On Thu, 2009-09-10 at 11:58 +0200, ext Matan Ziv-Av wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, Mohammed Hassan wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2009-09-10 at 08:48 +0200, ext Matan Ziv-Av wrote:
> >> On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, David Weinehall wrote:
> >>
> >>> On ons, 2009-09-09 at 23:48 +0200, ext Matan Ziv-Av wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, 9 Sep 2009, Andrew Flegg wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 16:22, Attila Csipa<maemo at csipa.in.rs> wrote:
> >>>>>> On Wednesday 09 September 2009 17:09:17 Andrew Flegg wrote:
> >>>>>>> Of course, if maemo-optify were really clever, it'd also handle
> >>>>>>> patterns like the above and produce "/opt/bob/share/foo", but I'd
> >>>>>>> consider this an optional enhancement.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I wonder if optification could be done on the level of the
> >>>>>> autobuilder... In that case most developers wouldn't even need to think
> >>>>>> about it (and/or mess it up :) at all.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There was a strong feeling on #maemo (and one I agree with) that the
> >>>>> auto-builder shouldn't be changing things in an uploaded package.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Other thoughts included:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>   * Use of /opt is perhaps now a QA requirement for Extras
> >>>>>   * Can we somehow add a /opt check into minimae/maemian? Is it
> >>>>>     possible, and is it sensible?
> >>>>
> >>>> Please recall that maemo5 is not the only maemo. Maemo4 is the latest
> >>>> availble for N800/N810 and maemo2 is the latest officailly available on
> >>>> 770. Many packages can compile from same source for all versions. Don't
> >>>> add artificial obstacles to force developers to make their packages
> >>>> incompatible with older versions.
> >>>
> >>> It's not an artificial obstacle, it's a way to work around the sad
> >>> reality that VFAT is a.) de facto standard, b.) a seriously useless file
> >>> system, c.) most users are unable to cope with better alternatives.
> >>>
> >>> But by all means, if you think this is an artificial obstacle, please
> >>> suggest alternative solutions; we'd be very thankful if you can come up
> >>> with any solution we might've missed.
> >>
> >> A simple solution is to let the installer handle this in a similar manner
> >> to the way doc files are removed after installation. You need: a script
> >> that runs after a package is installed and moves+sym links whatever it
> >> decides are big files or directories to some other location. You might
> >> want to allow package to indicate that some files should not be moved.
> >> Such an indication will be ignored by OS not running this script, thus
> >> allowing the package to be installed on multiple versions of operating
> >> system.
> >
> > And that indication is already a packaging difference.
> 
> But such a packaging difference leaves a package compatible with OS2008, 
> while moving some files to /opt might not be.
> 
> > I'd rather do ./configure --prefix=/opt/<package> and that's it.
> 
> That means two packages needed - one for fremantle and one for OS2008, 
> while in many cases it could be unnecessary.

Why ? It'll install and run. Ugly ? yes but will run :|

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