On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 11:24:09PM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
2) the systemd exceptions allows placing files in %{_prefix}/lib
rather
than %{_libdir} (the exceptions allow both putting the helper apps in there
which would generally be okay with just a multilib exception and the unit
files which are arch specific data and therefore usually go in %{_libdir}
and therefore needed a special exception). The only reason people can drag
%{_libexecdir} in to this discussion is that helper binaries are allowed in
either %{_libdir} or %{_libexecdir}. In the context of forcing people to
use a specific directory not specified by standards its meaningless because
%{_libdir} is a suitable alternative.
I think the libexec discussion is fairly relevant. Right now a package
can drop binaries in libexecdir and have a consistent path regardless of
the architecture, which is valuable. However, doing so results in
inconsistencies with other distributions which don't provide libexecdir.
This is clearly suboptimal, and it's reasonable to ask that the
packaging guidelines recognise that and handle it without requiring
additional exceptions - if a package wouldn't require an exception to
install binaries in libexec, it shouldn't need an exception install
binaries in lib.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org