please don't add incompatibilities

"D. J. Bernstein" <[email protected]> 23 Jun 2003 22:47:25 -0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.djb.package
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Programs can safely use /package/math/nistp224/include/nistp224.html and
link against /package/math/nistp224/library/nistp224.a. Why? Because the
nistp224 package supports, and will continue to support, those names.

Programs can't safely use /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. Why? Because
the emacs authors haven't settled on a site-lisp location. They wobble
between /usr/local/share, /usr/share, /opt, etc.

To make the situation better, the emacs authors will have to understand
the problem and settle on a location. Of course, they'd benefit from
choosing a location in the /package hierarchy.

Until that happens, creating yet another emacs fork, with yet another
site-lisp location, is only going to make the situation worse. The
advantages of having files in /package are outweighed by the costs of
having an even messier site-lisp access system for the foreseeable
future.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago