Re: Package format/management ramblingss

[Richard Stallman]

    I was thinking that they would be needed when information is needed
    from a user during install.

If a program needs configuration, it could have a config subdirectory,
which contains the configuration info plus a program named configure
that would configure the program.  If you want to "configure all
programs that need configuration", that would be easy to do--look
through /packages and find all packages that have config
subdirectories.  Otherwise the program should configure itself when
run for the first time.

      And during uninstall, to remove stale
    files and the like.

/packages could make a subdirectory appear inside /tmp and the program
could write its files there.
  

                                 And during uninstall, to remove stale
    files and the like.  Might be worth checking what pre/post
    install/uninstall rules are really used for; I will do this.