Hi > by write-once I mean the same write-once that applies to /usr/share > from a user point of view
I agree with most of what John Bollinger said there. However, I'd like to add one point about user-local installations, because you are talking a lot about it. I am conviced that installing an application with a prefix pointing somewhere into home is an absolute niche case. Most systems are single-user anyway, so if you simply want to get around your package manager, /usr/local probably is a better place. Most software installed in HOME actually comes from third-party package managers. Asking where they should which data where is a good question, especially because the specification is a bit weak on their use cases. That's part of the reason so few of them adhere to it. > > Only relevant data shall be put into XDG_DATA_HOME. > I'm not sure what "relevant" means. Basically everything that's worth space on my backup. If I have some software installtions in XDG_DATA_HOME I won't be angry, but the better way IMO is to put that data into XDG_CACHE_HOME and only store the registry database in XDG_DATA_HOME. > No comment about my concern about "portable" and "important" in the > current text about XDG_STATE_HOME ? With "portable", I was meaning "bound to the specific machine/installation" in the broadest sense. Regarding "important", see "relevant" above. > What do you think about dropping the bit about importance and making > "portable" more precise, i.e. that two machines should have their own > copy or so? I won't stop you. But I'm fine with the current wording and I'm simply happy that the XDG_STATE_HOME got merged. If I've learned one thing from that contribution: this spec isn't a "I have a nice idea let's formalize it". It's more a "let's look at how people do things and write down the common ground of things that worked well". So my suggestion is to wait a few years until some applications actually use XDG_STATE_HOME, and then have a look at them before making any adjustments to the spec. piegames On Sun, 2021-02-07 at 20:47 +0100, Sebastian Pipping wrote: > Hi piegames, > > > On 07.02.21 19:02, piegames wrote: > > > I don't see that in the spec, I just re-checked. What makes you > > > think > > > it's read-write, more than write-once? what part/sentences of > > > the > > > spec are your source on that? > > > > Well, the spec states "There is a single base directory relative to > > which user-specific data files should be written. This directory is > > defined by the environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME." I've never > > heard > > of something being write-once in this context. What would that be > > and > > what for? > > by write-once I mean the same write-once that applies to /usr/share > from > a user point of view: The package manager puts things there through > packages, that's the first write for any file involved. After that, > nothing but the package manager is supposed to replace or even change > files in /usr/share, right? (I'm ignoring at cases without a package > manager and/or a technically immutable /usr/share here.) That's what > I > mean by "write-once". > > Now the question is whether ~/.local/share has the same semantics or > not > and if not, why it's called "share" then. > > > > Either you have the write permission or you don't and if you > > have it's up to you what and how often you write. > > The root user often has write permissions to /usr/share but they are > still not supposed to write to /usr/share directly, as explained > above. > So "can" and "should" are two different pairs of shoes, no? > > > > > e.g. when XDG_DATA_HOME just contains regular /usr/share > > > like content that is shipped by the upstream application > > > > I think you are misunderstanding the specification. Why should > > XDG_DATA_HOME contain this data? > > For instance, because someone installed an application just to its > own > user space because they cannot get root permissions or do not want to > install for every single user. > > > > Everything that is shipped by the > > distribution is already available in the XDG_DATA_DIRS, that's what > > they are for. > > As I said: user-specific installation when system-wide installation > is > not or not a good option. > > > > Only relevant data shall be put into XDG_DATA_HOME. > > I'm not sure what "relevant" means. > > > > > What does it take to get a new version of basedir-spec released > > > in > > > general — is that documented somewhere? > > > > Great question. I've opened > > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-specs/-/issues/70 > > Cool. > > Is commit a0d218ad7da9f01fc5d01867f361aecc5cd61342 considered to be > the > official version 0.7? > > No comment about my concern about "portable" and "important" in the > current text about XDG_STATE_HOME ? > > Best > > > > Sebastian > _______________________________________________ > xdg mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg _______________________________________________ xdg mailing list [email protected] https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
