[M3devel] $ORIGIN?

[Olaf Wagner]

Quoting Jay K <jay.krell at cornell.edu>:

> So I can build a distribution FreeBSD 4.11...
>
> But it looks like FreeBSD didn't support $ORIGIN until very recently: 8.0.
>
> This is evidenced from two places:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/relnotes-detailed.html
>   indicates it is new
>
> and http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi lets you specify version.
> The ld-elf.so manpage doesn't mention it until 8.0.

That's correct.

Alas, there's no common standard shared by all the systems we support.

> This means, something like:
>   FreeBSD users using < 8.0 will need/want to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

We should document that as a workaround.

>   I don't think the distributed binaries have any hardcoded paths in  
>  them, except for the $ORIGIN stuff,
>    which I think will just be ignored. "Normally" they do, but the   
> distribution build specifically
>    tries to omit them.

> This "puts pressure" on considering "this problem" more/again?
>   NetBSD < 5.0, FreeBSD < 8.0 ... enough to do something about?
>   I've been looking into autoconf and libtool some, but i haven't yet, like..
>   what I'd like to see very clearly is them do the "relink before   
> install" behavior.
>   Once confirmed to be there.. maybe our "binary" packages are a   
> bunch of .o files?
>   Interesting compromise?
>   Or, really, maybe we somewhat give up on "relocatability" and   
> hardcode /usr/local/cm3?
>      I realize, official Debian packages need to be at /usr.
>   Anyone building from source, can put the files anywhere.
>   We can also only "give up" on FreeBSD and/or NetBSD -- where   
> $ORIGIN is more recent introduction.

We should keep that for the time being.

> I also seem to recall OSF/1 supports arbitrary environment   
> variables, but doesn't define anything for you like $ORIGIN.
> Some system is that way.
> For that can invent custom names and wrapper scripts perhaps.
>
> I know, a likely question, it has been asked for, "what is common?"   
> i.e. portable, works the same "everywhere"?
>   That would be hardcoded paths, no relocatability.
> $ORIGIN is very common, but less so.
>
> I'm the one who opened this can of worms here.
>  The previous -rpath was a mess with lots of directories. That could  
>  at least be changed to something short.
>   $ORIGIN is indeed very promising and fairly portable, but not   
> perfectly portable nor perfectly "behaved".
>   I don't think any solution is perfectly "behaved", there are   
> contradictory goals.

/usr/local/cm3 was the original one standard location when we first
published the sources from Critical Mass. But lots of people complained
and wanted more flexibility, or rather their platform-specific different
standard setups.

We haven't got the ressources to fulfill all wishes currently.

I'd vote to keep the status quo until someone either has a great idea
or implements something better, or we'll keep changing solutions back
and forth.

Olaf
-- 
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