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Re: Interpreting FHS



On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 04:18:49PM +0200, Eray Ozkural (exa) wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 January 2002 13:24, Daniel Stone wrote:
> >
> > I will not, under any circumstances, touch /opt. I believe Debian policy
> > prohibits it anyway.
> 
> I read the complete section for opt in the FHS. Here is my analysis.

Did you also read Policy, or just the FHS?

> Using /opt for packages doesn't violate the policy in any way. I repeat, 
> James *is* right. I suggest you to read it thoroughly before making further 
> judgement.
> 
> /opt is not intended solely for non-free add-on packages.
> 
> It is provided for add-on packages of any sort.

KDE is NOT an add-on! We provide it as part of Debian. My interpretation
is "add-on" == "third-party".

> Here is the description
> 
>  /opt -- Add-on application software packages
>        +-<package> Static package objects
>        /opt is reserved for the installation of add-on application software
>        packages.
> 
> It turns out that add-on does not mean "third party commercial vendor 
> supplied" in the following text of FHS. So indeed whoever interpreted it for 
> Debian (somebody who is seriously unable to comprehend English) interpreted 
> it incorrectly beforehand. It means what it says: "application packages" that 
> can be installed/removed. Much like applications in debian. (which are not 
> "system" software like libc)

How do you know that they didn't just omit "third-party" or such in that
second sentence?

> Here is a part that does interest debian:
> 
>       The directories /opt/bin, /opt/doc, /opt/include, /opt/info, /opt/lib,
>        and /opt/man are reserved for local system administrator use.  Packages
>        may provide "front-end" files intended to be placed in (by linking or
>        copying) these reserved directories by the local system administrator,
>        but shall function normally in the absence of these reserved
>        directories.
> 
> So those subdirs: /opt/bin, /opt/doc, /opt/include, /opt/infor, /opt/lib, 
> /opt/man are forbidden. Don't touch those. You may do anything else you want 
> with /opt in the manner described in detail in section 3.8

I am not touching /opt in any way, shape or form. Period.

> And the following excerpt I think clarifies the situation once and for all.
> 
>        Distributions may install software in /opt, but should not modify or
>        delete software installed by the local system administrator without the
>        assent of the local system administrator.
> 
> : This means that Debian can install software in /opt except those subdirs 
> listed above. Period.

Does Policy reinforce this?

-- 
Daniel Stone						    <daniel@sfarc.net>
<ultima> netgod: My calculator has more registers than the x86, and -thats- sad

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