[Distutils] Where to find config files

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Gregor Hoffleit writes:
 > In Debian's case, the directive is to keep *all* system-wide configuration
 > files in /etc. The /usr tree (less /usr/local) should potentially be
 > mountable read-only. Variable data goes into /var. That's also the sketch of
 > the Linux Filesystem Standard (now FHS).
 > 
 > Btw, I think as a consequence even site.py should be moved from
 > lib/python1.X to /etc.

  Not site.py, but sitecustomize.py, which is where local
modifications should go.  This is *not* included in the distribution,
so it not an installation problem, but the site-admin would need to
create a .pth in the shared area that added some directory to sys.path
(say, /etc/python/site-packages) so that individual host-admins could
add packages locally.
  But this begs the question: in such an environment, would it
generally make sense to support host-specific additions?

 > In the end, I guess this is a philosophical question, and the answer will be
 > different depending on your viewpoint (standalone Windoid/Macoid machines or
 > homo/heterogeneous networked systems potentially sharing a common filespace).

  And depending on how you think that shared filespace should be
managed; we use shared spaces here for all the "extras" (but not the
base installations), but we all of us that use that shared space can
update it.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	  <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives