XDG base directories and trash outside $HOME device

[Ryan Lortie]

hi,

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014, at 03:55, David Faure wrote:
> On Thursday 22 May 2014 12:26:29 Maurício Antunes wrote:
> > Is it okay to have $XDG_DATA_HOME in a device that is not the same
> > as $HOME?
> 
> It's unusual, but I don't see anything that would forbid it.
> 
> > Should not that trash spec quote be refrased to say just that the "home
> > trash" should always be used for files trashed in the same device,
> > but not that it's an user's main trash dir?
> 
> I have no objection to this spec change.

I'd actually prefer to take this chance to update the XDG basedir
specification to mandate that $HOME and each of the $XDG_*_HOME
variables are all on the same filesystem, with the XDG_* variables
contained within $HOME.

I think we should be aiming to reduce complexity in this area -- not
increase it.  Having XDG_DATA_DIRS available for expansion by the user
has shown itself to be extremely useful, but the only place that
XDG_*_HOME variables have presented themselves as truly useful is in the
construction of test sandboxes -- and those sandboxes could just as well
be constructed by way of setting $HOME directly.

I'm not suggesting that we should claw this back now and start
hardcoding ~/.config and ~/.local/share anywhere -- but I am suggesting
that maybe this level of configurability was a mistake.  We have to live
with that now, but we should not go out of our way to change the specs
in ways to encourage further use of these features.

Cheers