Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 13:01:16 -0600
From: lauri@fnal.gov (Laurelin of Middle Earth, 630-840-2214)
To: "Randolph J. Herber" <herber@fnal.gov>
cc: Robert Harris <rharris@cdfsga.fnal.gov>, lauri@fnal.gov, markl@fnal.gov,
yocum@fnal.gov, csieh@fnal.gov, linux_users@fnal.gov, kreymer@fnal.gov,
greenc@fnal.gov, fue-wg@fnal.gov
Subject: re: Requests for the forthcoming Fermi Linux release (fwd)
Randy Herber observes:
> ... /usr/products is the historical convention and
> your group changed that convention to /fnal/ups. You are attempting
> to change the convention or establish a new convention, which is your
> perogative per your group's charter (I do not challenge that). But
> it is a new convention and therefore surprising to many people,
> apparently including Robert Harris and Chris Green.
Yes, this is correct. The old convention (which was really a
*requirement*, since the old ups did not work correctly unless you
followed the convention (or seriously hacked at ups)) was
/usr/products, and we (UAS, OSS, the ups/upd development team, and
other members of the FUE group) changed the convention with the
release of the new ups.
>
> From what you said, it should have been easy enough and the procedures
> well documented to change /fnal/ups within ups to the historical location
> rather than force considerable rewriting of existing code which reflects
> the historical convention.
Unfortunately, this is not at all easy to accomplish for the general
case. You cannot have a mixed environment of old-ups and new-ups.
Many (most?) people did not want to destroy or modify their old ups
database -- they wanted it to be available in case there was a
problem with the new ups. This means that the new ups files MUST
live somewhere which is different from the old ups database -- they
cannot co-exist.
> This ability is just as important as the
> reason that the location flexibility was requested initiall, and for
> the same reasons. Preferably, the initial ups installation process
> should ask about such details and adjust the ups materials to match
> the users' expectations.
Yes, the next release of the Fermi Linux distribution should handle
this in a more portable manner.
-- lauri
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