Re: [kde] setting an /opt precedent

["John H. Robinson, IV" <jhriv@ucsd.edu>]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 05:01:04AM +0900, Junichi Uekawa wrote:
> "Eray Ozkural (exa)" <erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr> cum veritate scripsit:
> > NO! Certain subdirectories of /opt are reserved for local system admin. The 
> > rest of /opt can be used by the distribution, as explained in FHS with a 
> > language that a high school student can easily understand.
> 
> Please back your argument with a quote 
> I fail to find it.

section 3.12.2, paragraph 6:
	Distributions may install software in /opt, but must not modify
	or delete software installed by the local system administrator
	without the assent of the local system administrator.

if we define assent as ``dpkg -i'' then we can freely muck around in
/opt as much as we want. if we define assent as something like a
conffile, then we would have to tread much more carefully.

	example: if i installed kde3.deb, but replaced /opt/kde3/bin/kde
	with a home-rolled kde binary, an upgrade of kde3 would trounce
	on _my_ binary, which is strictly forbade by section 3.12.2 of
	the FHS 2.2, in ``language that a high school student can easily
	understand.''

i would tend to define assent as the latter, and would be solved most
easily as: no official .deb use /opt, period.

dictionary.com tends to back up my view:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=assent
	Assent implies agreement, especially as a result of
	deliberation: They readily assented to our suggestion.

this does not stop yoyodyne corp from making their own apt-get'able
repository, and an end user adding that to their sources.list, which may
(or may not) use /opt, and thusly trounce onother packages. but i am not
concerned about third pary packages, or even packages found in
people.debian.org/~buckaroo_bonzai

in those cases, the end user/system administrator has already assented
to using non-debian resources, so we cannot make any guarantees about
thier quality or compliance.

-john