Re: Software/HD ecology

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Fredrik Staxeng <fstx+u@update.uu.se> writes:
> >Those seem like pretty reasonable ideas; in more concrete form, perhaps
> >they could be added to the GNU programming standards or something.
> 
> I think that right thing is a gnu-install program. This would be
> called from install targets in the makefiles. It would log the
> files installed, and then you could do gnu-uninstall emacs.

The GNU coding standards in general do not presume any external
non-standard dependencies -- that is, everything they say can
theoretically be accomplished given only the package in question -- and
specify _what_ you should do rather than the mechanism by which you
should do it.

So certain package might want to use a `gnu-install' program that does
the book-keeping for them to meet the coding standards, but they'd have
to have their own copy of that program in their distribution (though
they needn't actually use it if their configure script detects a native
version).  Other packages may choose to simply do it another way.

It might be useful for users to have a `gnu-uninstall' program, but such
a thing should be an optional additional package that uses the basic
information provided by each package, as specified by coding standards.

> I think that undo logic has to be derived automatically. Manually
> writing things like that too error-prone, especially if they need 
> ongoing maintenance.

That's true, and maybe this would mean that most packages would end up
using a standard `gnu-install' program/script -- but it should be up to
the package to decide.

-Miles
-- 
`...the Soviet Union was sliding in to an economic collapse so comprehensive
 that in the end its factories produced not goods but bads: finished products
 less valuable than the raw materials they were made from.'  [The Economist]