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

[Santiago Vila]

Hello.

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.
* gettext.sh is not to be used by an ordinary user, only to be sourced
by shell scripts.
* shell functions like this should not need to be in the PATH
and should be sourced with an absolute path.

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.

This is going to be a real pity because so far the only patches included
in the Debian gettext package are either libtool/automake/autoconf updates
or patches provided by you.

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Santiago,

Post by Santiago Vila
This is the issue of gettext.sh being in /usr/bin, which has been
http://bugs.debian.org/292759
but you can skip most of the messages and read the one by Anthony Towns.
* The FHS says /usr/bin is only for executables.

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

Post by Santiago Vila
* 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.

Post by Santiago Vila
* 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.

Post by Santiago Vila
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