Re: BBDB v3 approaching release

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Thu, 30 May 2013 11:37:13 +0200 Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote: 

>>>>>> On Wed, 29 May 2013, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>> How do I configure install locations of a package if it's in ELPA
>>> format?

>> You don't.

UM> Why is this better than having them configurable? Especially, why are
UM> you asking that a package like BBDB that has a perfectly working
UM> autoconf build system should _remove_ it?

I don't think Stefan asked for that.  Simply, when something is
installed as an ELPA package, it doesn't have control over its install
location.

UM> This means that anyone who wants to adhere to some standard like FHS
UM> must move files around manually. I had to do this way too often when
UM> packaging things for Gentoo.

UM> Most packages are at least friendly enough and spend a defvar or
UM> defcustom that allows to configure these directories (often with a
UM> fallback to the above-mentioned load-file-name location).

Installing system packages and installing user packages are completely
different things.  The ELPA is intended as a user-accessible format,
where "user" could be "root".  But it doesn't have deep integration with
any of the Emacs platforms, nor was that part of its design.  I think
that's worth discussing further and improving.

Ted