Re: config/2705: apache.org online documentation refers to conf

["Ralf S. Engelschall" <rs...@engelschall.com>]

The following reply was made to PR config/2705; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Ralf S. Engelschall" <rs...@engelschall.com>
To: apbugs@apache.org
Cc:  Subject: Re: config/2705: apache.org online documentation refers to conf
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 10:05:16 +0200

 In article <19...@hyperreal.org> you wrote:
 
 Marc:
 >[...]
 >  The default apaci directories are quite confusing and nonsensical when you
 >  install Apache in its own tree, with extra levels added for fun.
 
 PR Submitter:
 >[...]  
 >  Anyway, for what it's worth, I dunno anything about stuff being hacked on t=
 >  op, I just followed the instructions i.e. gunzip, tar, README, README.confi=
 >  gure... and ended up with the "SVR4 style" etc, var, share layout. It actua=
 >  lly seems overly complex to me, I preferred bin, conf, log...
 >[...]  
 
 A few hints:
 
 1. Its correct that having two configure scripts is confusing.
    That's the price one has to pay when one wants both backward compatibility
    to the old days and new features like an out-of-the-box installation
    procedure at the same time.
 
 2. Its not quite correct that you get nonsensical extra levels of directories.
    The /apache is only appended for some dirs and only if they still don't
    contain the word "apache" _and_ the user hasn't specified them explicitly.
    That's a reasonable approach. OTOH installing Apache in its own tree but
    don't using "apache" somewhere in the location prefix is also nonsensical.
    One doesn't install Emacs with prefix /usr/local/vim/, right? ;-)
 
 3. The path layout is neither SVR4 nor BSD style. Its actually the
    layout specified by the GNU style guide for Makefiles and software
    distributions. And it _is_ the layout a lot of people and groups agreed to
    (compare for instance the Linux FSSTD stuff, etc). So it is the only
    reasonable standard we could chose. OTOH if you dislike some paths of this
    default layout, you can adjust it freely. Mostly _every_ path of the layout
    can be adjusted by the user.
 
                                        Ralf S. Engelschall
                                        rse@engelschall.com
                                        www.engelschall.com