Re: Path for system-wide .eln files

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Fri, 04 Sep 2020, Emacs development discussions wrote:

> Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> writes:
>> Why would the architecture be included in that path? 

> The reason is that this folder name is the same we use to disambiguate
> the Emacs version for every folder in `comp-eln-load-path'.  I was asked
> to add the version there so is more user friendly and I think is a good
> suggestion.  So now became like:

> ~/.emacs.d/eln-cache/28.0.50-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-679caf986.../

> At this point the system cache was

> /usr/local/lib/emacs/28.0.50/native-lisp/28.0.50-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-679caf986.../

> I thought this is reduntant and removed the version there.

The difference between the two directories is that the home directory
may be shared between different architectures, while /usr/lib (or
/usr/local/lib) is _not_ shared by its definition. Therefore the
architecture makes sense in ~/.emacs.d/ but is redundant in /usr/lib/.

>> That's not what packages normally do (except for compilers and other
>> programs of the binary toolchain).

> Well doesn't sound that different :)

> I'll admit I don't have any strong opinion/interest on this directory
> topic, as long as we find a satisfying solution for everyone is no big
> deal to re-add the version there if we like.

I'd very much prefer (also from a distro point of view) if the directory
trees in /usr/share and /usr/lib would have a similar structure. That
is, /usr/lib/emacs/<version>/..., and no arch triplet.