I recently reported to bug-autoconf that it did not seem to support architecture-independent executables:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2011-03/msg00004.html The problem is that if one specifies --exec-prefix to be different from --prefix in order to allow architecture-dependent executables to co-exist in a file system, then all executables are installed to that architecture-dependent path, whereas, in automake-speak, bin_PROGRAMS should be installed to that path, whereas bin_SCRIPTS arguably shouldn't. Mike Frysinger both kindly gave me a workaround, and suggested that this is not a shortcoming in autoconf, but rather, if anything, in the GNU Coding Standards, which autoconf merely implements. Hence, I write here to ask whether for projects written in languages whose executable format is machine-independent (typically, because it's textual), it would not make sense to support installation of executables on a path derived from --prefix, not --exec-prefix? (It doesn't seem necessary to invent a third prefix.) -- http://rrt.sc3d.org
