Re: gettext-base: installs weird file /usr/bin/gettext.sh (fwd)

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Santiago,

> This is the issue of gettext.sh being in /usr/bin, which has been
> reported again as a bug. There is a long thread here:
> 
> http://bugs.debian.org/292759
> 
> but you can skip most of the messages and read the one by Anthony Towns.
> 
> To summarize, this is what most debian people seem to think:
> 
> * The FHS says /usr/bin is only for executables.

It also says that /bin "may also contain commands which are used indirectly
by scripts".

> * gettext.sh is not to be used by an ordinary user, only to be sourced
>   by shell scripts.

Yes. But when you put a non-executable file into /usr/bin, exec() and 'which'
will ignore it; only the "." command will see it.

> * shell functions like this should not need to be in the PATH
>   and should be sourced with an absolute path.

This is unacceptable. It forces people to use put absolute paths into the
scripts before installing scripts. It makes it uncomfortable to use gettext.sh
in projects without autoconf. Like -rpath linker option, which many
distributors don't like, it makes it hard to use chroot environments,
to mount the root file system at other locations, etc.

> I would like to follow FHS, and I would also like not to deviate from the
> upstream package, but apparently I will not be able to do both anymore.

I have submitted an FHS change request on this issue.

Bruno