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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:17:30 -0400
To: Charles Wilson <cwilson AT ece DOT gatech DOT edu>
From: "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <lhall AT rfk DOT com>
Subject: Re: ITP: netpbm
Cc: "Gerrit P. Haase" <freeweb AT nyckelpiga DOT de>,
   Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke AT gnu DOT org>, cygwin-apps AT cygwin DOT com
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At 03:57 PM 4/26/2002, Charles Wilson wrote:


>Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc) wrote:
>
>
>>I'm not sure why this makes more sense for this package than it would for
>>any package.  So, to me, this is not a requirement for generating this package or at least not at this time, unless somebody can point out how
>>this package would be considered "special" in this regard.
>>In general, I don't see the advantage to having many "bin" directories,
>>at least insofar as it moves toward separate bin directories for every
>>package.  It would just lead to the proliferation of directories in PATH or many complaints on this list stating "I installed X but when I run it,
>>it says 'X: command not found'!!!"  I'd rather avoid either of these alternatives.
>
>
>Funny you should use 'X' as your variable.  Think /usr/X11R6/bin/...


Yep, I'm good at things like that! ;-)


>I agree, we shouldn't worry too much about keeping /bin "clean" -- although distributions are moving towards putting stuff into /opt/pkg/* and making symlinks these days.
>
>However, IMO netpbm, like XF86, is a special case -- how many other packages have 223 executable files and scripts?  ("KDE" doesn't count; the KDE environment consists of lots of different packages; netpbm is one integral unit (or at most 4).  And besides, doesn't KDE install into its own tree?)


OK, if you want to use the yardstick of "What's the convention on UNIX" as
a guideline, I guess that makes sense, excluding the free-for-all idea of
putting all packages in /opt/ptg/* and symlinking.  Is  there any de-facto 
standard directory tree for netpbm in the UNIX world?  If so, then maybe 
it's worth adopting.  If not, then I say it's best to just lump it all in 
/usr/bin with everything else.  Since it's an optional package, the number 
of users that might prefer it otherwise will be a percentage of a percentage 
of those who choose to install it.  They can be accommodated by providing a 
script with the package that moves the files elsewhere if this becomes a big 
issue, no?



Larry Hall                              lhall AT rfk DOT com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      http://www.rfk.com
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
Holliston, MA 01746                     (508) 893-9889 - FAX