[Rpm-maint] RFC: SUSE/openSUSE's proposed relocation of /var/lib/rpm

[Panu Matilainen]

On 10/12/2017 04:04 PM, Colin Walters wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017, at 07:18 AM, Panu Matilainen wrote:
>>
>> Rpm is not the only data of this kind, I can think of at least one other
>> similar need (SWID) and almost certainly there are more. Why not give
>> this data a place of its own? Something like
>>
>> /usr/sysimage
> 
> Hm...creating a new subdirectory of /usr isn't something to do lightly;
> for example in the FHS /usr/X11 is explicitly defined, but that's just
> a legacy nowadays -  xorg has moved into /usr/lib and /usr/share just
> like everything else.

What's lightly? When commonplace data doesn't reasonably fit into 
existing categories it's not just-for-fun exactly.

> 
> Creating a new subdirectory of /usr seems to imply it's *really* special,
> but...take the example of systemd unit files, which live in /usr/lib/systemd/system.
> I could certainly imagine the systemd developers saying systemd unit
> files are so critical to system operation that the deserve higher visibility, in
> say /usr/systemd.

I dont know why you bring up visibility when it has nothing to do with 
the matter at hand, and I'm not suggesting /usr/rpmdb but a new home for 
a whole class of data.

/usr/lib/systemd/system isn't comparable to rpmdb at all. For one, it's 
content is static files that will be identical from host to host, rpmdb 
is different on each host (unless a shared pre-installed image is used, 
hence "sysimage") due to install timestamps and such.

> But they choose (IMO rightly) not to do that.   Don't get me wrong, I find
> putting things like this in /usr/lib a little bit weird.  But it's not clear to me that
> rpm is quite special enough to just do this right now.   Particularly not
> without e.g. getting buy-in from say the dpkg/gentoo/arch/whatever maintainers
> too right?

My whole point was that there seems to exist a whole class of data that 
just doesn't fit into any of FHS's categories, so maybe it's time to at 
least consider the possibility of adding a new category for the purpose.

Certainly dpkg and dozen+ other package managers are in the same boat, 
cross-distro considerations yadda yadda, yes.

	- Panu -