[csw-maintainers] Shared library placement proposal

[Ben Walton]

Excerpts from Peter FELECAN's message of Fri Feb 04 03:22:32 -0500 2011:

> Indeed, we cannot have a strict, mandatory policy on this, rather a
> recommendation which is still a policy. Consequently, your
> proposition of modification cannot be as strong as you proposed,
> i.e., imposing the symbolic links instead of the real files.

This is true, I agree.  However, I think that for this to be a useful
policy, we should at least agree on the preferred location for the
file, and by proxy, the preferred direction for the symlink (eg: from
'special' -> 'normal' or from 'normal' -> 'special').  This will add
consistency overall, while allowing for the opposite file placement in
justified cases.

My preference, as the whole point of this proposal is to have more
libraries available in /opt/csw/lib, is to prefer the files to be
placed in /opt/csw/lib and the symlinks (if any) to be in
/opt/csw/special/lib/.

Does anyone think this should be the opposite by default?

It would also help to have at least some example of a case where you'd
have cause to reverse the preferred direction of the symlinks.  This
is not something to include in the documents, but simply to further
our discussion and make the documents better overall.  (Please forgive
me if I've missed a previously described example.)

> As for using alternatives for shared libraries, I don't know what to
> think. I thought that alternatives are more appropriate to
> executables but I must confess that thoroughly exploring
> alternatives is one of my objectives.

I think this is correct.  Alternatives would work for shared libraries
in the technical sense, but I don't think they're a good practical
choice.

Thanks
-Ben
--
Ben Walton
Systems Programmer - CHASS
University of Toronto
C:416.407.5610 | W:416.978.4302