basedir spec and plugins

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 2009/06/30 14:22, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
>> On 2009/06/30 00:08, Thiago Macieira wrote:
>>> What's more, to be suitable for C++, we may need to encode the C++ ABI
>>> for architectures where more than one C++ compiler are common (which
>>> is just about every platform except the free ones). But we can have
>>> that as a subtype.
 >>
>> Is this necessary?  Would you really expect someone to have two copies
>> of the same app or library installed, each with a different C++ ABI
>> used?  If not, then it's fine to keep plugins with different ABIs in the
>> same directory.
>
> We're not talking about the same app here. If we were, then the plugins
> would be placed in this application's specific directories and we wouldn't
> be having this discussion.
>
> I believe we're talking here about generic application plugins, that can
> be used for all applications. I don't have a use-case for it (see my
> earlier emails on the thread), but it could happen in the future.

Ok, fair enough.  The fact that nothing like this seems to exist, and 
that plugin systems have been around for decades kinda suggests this 
isn't a likely use-case, but... sure, anything can happen.

> And, in any case, it could be the same app as well, if we consider that
> $HOME is often mounted from an NFS server. So it's not too far-fetched to
> imagine two different systems with two different builds sharing an NFS
> mount.

True enough.

>> Also note that we're talking about desktop use here.  That's the 'D' in
>> XDG.  Who is going to have HPUX running on IA64 as a desktop machine AND
>> want to do something ridiculous like have two copies of the same app
>> installed, compiled with different C++ ABIs?
>
> Well, then think of Solaris, where KDE does run on. And it can be compiled
> with both Sun CC and GCC. And they are binary incompatible.

Who in their right mind would compile two copies of KDE (or anything 
aside from some lowlevel system libs) using two different C++ ABIs?

But yeah, I guess you still have the case of the NFS-mounted homedir to 
contend with; even if it's pretty unlikely that a user would mount that 
homedir on two different machines of the same arch but with apps 
compiled using a different C++ compiler.

	-brian