From: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com>
To: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
Cc: 53447@debbugs.gnu.org, Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com>
Subject: [bug#53447] Introducing ‘GUIX_’-prefixed environment variables
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 20:56:41 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87wnin2rae.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87lez4lz96.fsf_-_@gnu.org> ("Ludovic Courtès"'s message of "Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:29:41 +0100")
Hi Ludovic,
Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
> Hi,
>
> Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> I like to see this as a bug, so I've opened one as 53514; Guix should
>> strive to not mess with the host environment, and setting global
>> variables used by both Guix and a potentially foreign host goes against
>> this. The proper fix would be to patch all applications in Guix to use
>> Guix-specific variables, such as GUIX_XDG_DATA_DIRS instead of
>> XDG_DATA_DIRS.
>
> This approach has its appeal (like in the ‘GUIX_PYTHONPATH’ case), but
> there’s a tension with our other unwritten (?) guideline that we should
> modify packages as little as possible.
>
> Such wide-ranging changes would have the unfortunate effect that they’d
> make Guix packages “special”: documentation, bug reports, suggestions
> you’d find online would apply to the “real” package, but maybe not to
> the Guix one. That is a situation we’d rather avoid IMO.
True; but after people would get a hang that in Guix most environment
variables would be prefixed with 'GUIX_', I don't think it'd be that big
of an issue. Maintaining the patches would be where the burden would
lie, in my opinion.
> ‘XDG_DATA_DIRS’ is a real problem though. In large part that’s because
> its purpose is too broad—what “data dirs” are we talking about? It
> would be ideal if we could progressively replace ‘XDG_DATA_DIRS’ search
> path specifications with more specific environment variables, when they
> exist, or perhaps by using ‘wrap-program’ instead of having search path
> specs.
Are there any more specific environment variables that exist that can
replace XDG_DATA_DIRS? I'm not too knowledgeable about the freedesktop
specs, but I'm somewhat skeptical? If they don't yet exist, that makes
this idea much less actionable.
Thanks,
Maxim
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-01-26 1:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-01-22 14:13 [bug#53447] [PATCH] doc: Unset environment variables considered harmful Liliana Marie Prikler
2022-01-22 16:04 ` Ludovic Courtès
2022-01-22 17:53 ` Liliana Marie Prikler
2022-01-24 22:27 ` Maxim Cournoyer
2022-01-25 13:29 ` [bug#53447] Introducing ‘GUIX_’-prefixed environment variables Ludovic Courtès
2022-01-26 1:56 ` Maxim Cournoyer [this message]
2022-01-26 12:05 ` Ludovic Courtès
2022-01-26 20:03 ` Liliana Marie Prikler
2022-01-27 4:53 ` Maxim Cournoyer
2022-01-25 7:39 ` [bug#53447] [PATCH] doc: Unset environment variables considered harmful Ludovic Courtès
2022-01-25 19:21 ` Liliana Marie Prikler
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