* Rainer Orth <ro at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE> [2006-05-04 14:18]:
> Stephen Hahn <sch at eng.sun.com> writes:
>
> > 2.4. 'g' Prefixing
> >
> > Historically, introduction of GNU utilities into /usr/bin has been
> > done with a 'g' character prefixed to the utility name. This
> > | proposal amends this practice: the 'g'-prefixed variant should be
> > provided if already introduced. In cases where another operating
> > | system has provided a 'g'-prefixed variant, the project team
> > | introducing an otherwise-name-conflicting GNU component may choose
> > to also provide one; otherwise, additional 'g'-prefixed components
> > in /usr/bin are discouraged.
> >
> > GNU components that do not conflict with existing or anticipated
> > components in the system's default commands environment should not
> > be placed in /usr/gnu, and do not require 'g'-prefixing.
>
> I think this needs clarification: consider a GNU package like coreutils
> which has both components which conflict with their /usr/bin counterparts
> (like ls) and those that don't exist in /usr/bin (or anywhere else, like
> seq) and thus don't conflict. I cannot believe that the proposal is to
> introduce the non-conflicting tools into /usr/bin, and leave the rest of
> the package in /usr/gnu/bin. Apart from being a maintenance nightmare (the
> GNU packages just don't provide the infrastructure to install different
> binaries into different bindirs), it takes away the possiblity to run in a
> pure Solaris (i.e. non-GNU) environment (where seq doesn't exist).
It is unfortunately proposing just that. Your following scenarios are
all correct (including the identification that a completely separate
GNU-only environment is not possible).
I was talked out of having the /usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin ordering
("fallback to GNU") a couple of days ago--mostly to stay consistent
with "serendipitous discovery". At this point, I don't see how to
reconcile the two cases simultaneously. Making /usr/gnu a
self-consistent tree is substantially easier for the integrator.
With respect to MANPATH, one aspect I was interested in: is the
order-lookup-management syntax cross-platform?
- Stephen
