globally installed packages vs. relocatable Octave

[John W. Eaton]

Currently, the absolute directory name corresponding to a globally
installed package is saved in the octave_packages file.  This causes
trouble for relocating an Octave installation.

It is also possible to set the "prefix" for global package
installations.  This may be done independently for each installed
package.  Additionaly, the "prefix" for architecture dependent files
must be set separately, as well as the location of the file that
contains the list of installed packages.

Is it necessary to allow the global prefix to be modified, or would it
be OK to simply expect that globally installed packages are located in
a directory under OCTAVE_HOME?  If we could assume this, then the
package database file would not have to contain the full directory
name for globally installed packages and it would be easier to
relocate an installation of Octave that includes globally installed
packages.

My motivation here is to make it easier to build a binary package for
Windows (for example) that includes a set of pre-installed packages
and that can be easily installed in any directory on the system.

jwe