What's worse: unowned directories or multiple owners?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Thu, 2006-03-30 at 14:43 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:08:47 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 20:05 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:39:30 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 10:32 -0700, Orion Poplawski wrote:
> > > > > Maybe the third time is the charm:
> > > > > 
> > > > > I want to install a file into /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/ but I don't 
> > > > > want to Requires: /usr/share/emacs/site-list/.
> > > > It would have to be
> > > > Requires(pre): usr/share/emacs/site-list
> > > > because otherwise rpm won't be able to handle this correctly.

> > > All of these packages claim that they provide Emacs' data directory and
> > > would satisfy above "Requires(pre)". This is is harmless as long as you
> > > get what you want:
> >
> > It's not harmless: It adds a dependency on a package providing this
> > directory. Not using a dependency on the directory, but simply owning it
> > would make this package independent of any package providing this
> > directory.
> 
> You misunderstood me completely. Let me rephrase. There are multiple
> packages which include the /usr/share/emacs directory. So, currently any
> dependency on that directory would pull in an arbitrary package which
> provides this directory (shortest pkg name wins in Yum). What does this
> mean for any package which would "Requires(pre): /usr/share/emacs"?
It would pull in another package you don't want and don't have any use
for. That's why I consider it harmful.

> > This is nasty when a package actually is independent of any emacs
> > variant and only carries some convenience macros, which are useful for
> > emacs users (For example, autoconf is one of these packages)
> > 
> > In this case, the "Requires" would be wrong.
> 
> Well, not wrong at all semantically. Simply assume that "/usr/share/emacs
> belongs to Emacs, and no other package should (better: must) mess with
> Emacs' directories".
That's exactly the point I do not agree with you.

/usr/share/emacs is a directory to carry emacs support files. This
doesn't mean a user is using them nor emacs - I.e. there is no 1:1
correspondence between emacs and /usr/share/emacs. 

Conversely, as I see it, emacs is "one among many" to use
/usr/share/emacs, not the "exclusive one to provide it".

>  Now, if you create multiple packages which claim they
> are the owner of /usr/share/emacs, this is wrong.
c.f. above. I disagree, it is not wrong, it is a feature.

Ralf