🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1853@tansei1.tansei.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp>, mhiroshi@tansei.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (mhiroshi) writes:

> 1) The base path should be "/usr/gnu" like "/usr/ucb"
>    rather than "/usr/local" since GNU's software is not
>    just PDS but is Free Software that has different copyright(copyleft)
>    policy than the others.

So?  It's not /usr/public-domain, just /usr/local.  In our /usr/local,
we have everything from public domain software to software that we
paid money for.

That said, I don't care so much where the default root is - in most
of the Makefiles with GNU software these days, you just have to change
the value of the prefix variable, and that is really no big deal.  I'm
perfectly happy for it to be at /usr/local - one fewer line for me to
modify - but I could certainly deal with modifying that one line.

> 2) Unifying the base path above (not under /usr/local )
>    greatly reduces the user's complication about the maintainance
>    of the GNU software.

>    For example, we can compile the source code on one site, and then
>    move it by transferring only under one directory /usr/gnu with sources.

... etc.

This all assumes that there is a big distinction in your installation
between GNU software and non-GNU software.  If I were copying software
over from one machine to another, it would probably be done a single
package at a time (e.g. when installing a new package), in which case
putting all the GNU stuff together does no good, or as a lump sum
(e.g. when configuring a new computer), in which case putting all the
GNU stuff together does no good.

> 3) The other idea is that all the programs are made so that
> it refers the user's environment variable as the base directory
> of the GNU products. For example if the environment variable
> GNUPATH is set to /usr/gnu, then everything is relative to that
> path. If the GNUPATH is set to /usr/local, then ... so on.
> However I think floating path is not as good as it sounds.

I think it's pretty silly.  If I want to use the GNU version of cp,
say, then I always want to use it, whether or not I'm using it from
within a GNU program.  So I just set up my path so that it invokes GNU
cp.

david carlton
carlton@husc.harvard.edu

       If elected, Zippy pledges to each and every American a
       55-year-old houseboy...