Re: [Bug-guile-ncurses] Bug report, from guile-ncurses, make check

[Jean Louis]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 07:28:54AM +0000, Mike Gran wrote:
> > 
> > The above shall be corrected to be in accordance with GNU Coding
> > Standards: https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html
> > 
> > I am using GNU Stow, so packages get placed in /package, and /usr is
> > created by using symlinks, and I don't expect to have additional
> > configuration like --with-gnu-filesystem-hierarchy in order for
> > --prefix to work. --prefix alone should be enough.
> > 
> > I guess that option --with-gnu-filesystem-hierarchy including the help
> > output from ./configure --help in regards to "GNU Filesystem
> > Hierarchy" shall be removed. GNU systems shall be free of some imposed
> > standards or rules. That is why there is --prefix and other directory
> > specifications, so that everybody can freely decide where and how to
> > install packages.
> > 
> > Quote below:
> > 
> > 7.2.5 Variables for Installation Directories
> > 
> > Installation directories should always be named by variables, so it is
> > easy to install in a nonstandard place. The standard names for these
> > variables and the values they should have in GNU packages are
> > described below. They are based on a standard file system layout;
> > variants of it are used in GNU/Linux and other modern operating
> > systems.
> > 
> > Installers are expected to override these values when calling make
> > (e.g., make prefix=/usr install) or configure (e.g., configure
> > --prefix=/usr). GNU packages should not try to guess which value
> > should be appropriate for these variables on the system they are being
> > installed onto: use the default settings specified here so that all
> > GNU packages behave identically, allowing the installer to achieve any
> > desired layout.
> 
> 
> 
> Indeed. I am aware.
> 
> I shall not change it, though.  Upstream Guile is the source
> of the confusion. If it can be corrected there, I
> can correct it here.  Until then, I am doing what I think
> I must to conform to its expectations.  Few users will
> ever read the documentation and they will expect that
> "./configure && make && make install" produce a useful
> result. Rather than having to set three environment variables
> for the .scm, .so, and .go files respectively.
> 
> Regards,
> Mike

Mike, you have provided --prefix to ./configure, and --prefix does not
work as expected.

You expect everyone to just use ./configure without options? This
makes no sense, that is not why configure was made.

I guess the --prefix option shall do its job, and not just be there
to ignore what somebody wants.

Jean Louis