Location of gconf schema files

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Sat, 2007-04-07 at 14:01 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> During the review of one of my packages it was pointed out that files under 
> /etc/gconf/schemas should not be marked %config, because they shouldnot be 
> edited and because leaving old edited versions there when using 
> %config(noreplace) could have bad side effects on the working of gconf.
> 
> So I filed a bug against rpmlint as rpmlint complains about files under 
> /etc/gconf/schemas not beging %config:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=235487
> 
> Ville then asked the question in that BZ ticket, that since these files 
> shouldn't be edited, that we really should be installing them under /usr/share. 
> I also know of atleast one package where upstream by default does exactly that.
> 
> Ville also found a Debian draft policy on this:
> http://burtonini.com/computing/gnome-policy-20050123.html#id2447554
> 
> I tend to agree with Ville's and the Debian draft policy's reasoning, these 
> files really should be under /usr/share (and gconf should be tought to look in 
> both locations)
> 

There is a gnome mailing list thread somewhere between Havoc and some
Debian packagers about this.  I believe the end result was that Havoc
acknowledged that %{_datadir} made more sense but didn't want to move
them for fear of compatibility problems.

If Debian is installing gconf schemas into %{_datadir} then there'd be
evidence that compatibility isn't a huge problem (or at least, that the
Debian people have some experience with how to deal with moving them.)
Is this the case or is it just a draft?

> So what do others think? I would like to see some discussion on this here and 
> then I would like to see / ask the FPC (to) make a decision on this, includng 
> whether or not to use %config for them.

The main question I have is whether this is something we want to take on
as a downstream project or something we'd want to do upstream.  It is a
moderately large task (although the complexity might not be hard.
GConf2 and consuming apps should be all set up for this.  It's just that
we'll have to figure out how to install gconf schema to the right
directory for lots of packages.)  If Debian is actively moving things to
%{_datadir} then it's two major distributions doing it which gives more
credence to any patches we send upstream.  This is a FHS issue and we
have precedence for making moves within Fedora based on FHS (for
instance, the way we install web applications).

-Toshio
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