XDG_CONFIG_DIRS an /usr/local/etc/xdg

[Elsie Hupp]

>>> I have pondered this for a while now and could also not find
>>> anything via search engine or on this list, so I figured I actually
>>> ask the ones who wrote the spec.
>> 
>> I did not write the spec, but I have implemented it. I'm uncertain
>> whether those who did write it hang around here.
> 
> I was hoping they would be, or is there a better way of contacting them?

The authors all have individual email addresses at the top of the specification:

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

Waldo Bastian <bastian at kde.org>
Allison Karlitskaya <desrt at desrt.ca>
Lennart Poettering <lennart at poettering.net>
Johannes Löthberg <johannes at kyriasis.com>

>> Anyway, your questions seem to fall more in the general system
>> administration area than in the area of the spec itself.
> 
> I respectfully disagree, since it is a question about what should or
> maybe should *not* happen at compile time or at runtime, respectively. I
> am asking for a general way to make the software redistributable but
> still installable locally, like virtually every software project makes
> possible. The admin/user *should* have nothing more to do than making
> sure that PATH is set correctly to have /usr/local take precedence, but
> that is already taken care of in virtually every distro.

It may be worthwhile to add more guidance about “best practices” to the text of the specification, even without any changes to the underlying implementations.