[Rivet] auxiliary scripts in several generators.

[David Grellscheid]

Hi Pere,

If I understand correctly, you're trying to use/develop yet another
reinvention of a packaging system. No mature packaging system
I know needs the software they package up to change, especially when
that software behaves as expected compared to other GNU-style projects.
I think the config scripts taking their information from configure runs
are fine.

>>> installations into kits which are distributed on Grid sites
>> 
>> Yes, but surely that "kit" has a known path structure. This is what
>> needs to go into configure. AFS only appears as a temporary 
>> location in DESTDIR.
> 
> The problem is the plural with 'sites'. In general each site will 
> have a different place.

In that case, how does the kit know where to put things?

> Honestly, you do not think that having an installation relocatable is
> better? 

This isn't the discussion point. I also think it's better if it would
rain less in the UK, but it is not something that can be achieved. The
relocatability you envision is impossible to get in all generality with
GNU-style shared-library Linux systems. You'd have to go down the OS X
route of including all dependencies in each app bundle, and just live
with the multiple copies of common libraries. And even within those app
bundles the paths are known, not arbitrary.

Herwig++ needs to know where various of its internals are in relation to
each other. We can ensure that automatically at configure time, as long
as we're told the final layout. If then the user moves the components
all over the place, it becomes the user's responsibility to tell the
binary where to find everything else (via explicit). From within Herwig
we're not going to go searching for the location all the bits.

> Perhaps the solution I proposed is not good enough but I am
> sure a solution can be worked out to cover all cases.

All I'm pleading for (in too many words, sorry!) is to solve a packaging
problem at the packaging level; the codes, including the config scripts
are fine as they are by default.

  David