<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"> <style type="text/css" style="display:none;"> P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} </style> </head> <body dir="ltr"> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Hi Group,</div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I think "write once" is a poor term for describing the contents of /usr/share. Moreover, I disagree that the explanation of the intended meaning is an accurate characterization, inasmuch as it focuses on a package manager, as opposed to other administrative tools and agents.<span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"> There doesn't even have to be a package manager, though most systems these days do have them.</span> I would say instead that /usr/share is expected to be modified only by administrative action, not by or on behalf of user processes, and not as part of the routine operation of system services. I reject the assertion that root is supposed to avoid ever writing to /usr/share directly, though I would accept that doing so should not be considered routine.</div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important">XDG_DATA_HOME provides for data files with significance and semantics analogous to those of the contents of /usr/share, with some sense of personal administrative action in place of (system) administrative action. But it is not restricted to that. If an application provides for a custom user version of a file whose base version appears in /usr/share, then XDG_DATA_HOME is the place for it. <span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important">And yes, if an application would normally install its data files to /usr/share when installed as a system application, then <span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important">XDG_DATA_HOME is the place for them in a personal installation.<span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"> But also, XDG_DATA_HOME is a place for application-associated, user-generated or user-modifiable persistent data shared across multiple application instances or among a collection of related applications</span><span style="margin:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important">. It is neither necessary nor particularly useful to try to distinguish between the last category and the previous ones because these files along belong to the user, not to the system.</span></span></span></span></div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="margin:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><br> </span></span></span></span></div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="margin:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important">I have always supposed that the "share" in the default value of XDG_DATA_HOME was chosen by analogy with /usr/share, but (1) it is only a default, and (2) every analogy has its break-down point. The analogous default name should not be taken as implying anything outside of what is actually written in the specification.</span></span></span></span></div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><br> </span></span></span></div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><br> </span></span></span></div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">John Bollinger</span></div> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br> </span></div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="font-family:"Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);display:inline !important"><br> </span></span></span></div> <div id="appendonsend"></div> <hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%" tabindex="-1"> <div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> xdg <xdg-bounces@lists.freedesktop.org> on behalf of Sebastian Pipping <sebastian@pipping.org><br> <b>Sent:</b> Sunday, February 7, 2021 1:47 PM<br> <b>To:</b> xdg@lists.freedesktop.org <xdg@lists.freedesktop.org><br> <b>Subject:</b> Re: [basedir-spec] XDG_DATA_HOME and reboot-preserved read-write state?</font> <div> </div> </div> <div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> <div class="PlainText">Caution: External Sender. Do not open unless you know the content is safe.<br> <br> <br> Hi piegames,<br> <br> <br> On 07.02.21 19:02, piegames wrote:<br> >> I don't see that in the spec, I just re-checked. What makes you<br> >> think<br> >> it's read-write, more than write-once? what part/sentences of the<br> >> spec are your source on that?<br> ><br> > Well, the spec states "There is a single base directory relative to<br> > which user-specific data files should be written. This directory is<br> > defined by the environment variable $XDG_DATA_HOME." I've never heard<br> > of something being write-once in this context. What would that be and<br> > what for?<br> <br> by write-once I mean the same write-once that applies to /usr/share from<br> a user point of view: The package manager puts things there through<br> packages, that's the first write for any file involved. After that,<br> nothing but the package manager is supposed to replace or even change<br> files in /usr/share, right? (I'm ignoring at cases without a package<br> manager and/or a technically immutable /usr/share here.) That's what I<br> mean by "write-once".<br> <br> Now the question is whether ~/.local/share has the same semantics or not<br> and if not, why it's called "share" then.<br> <br> <br> > Either you have the write permission or you don't and if you<br> > have it's up to you what and how often you write.<br> <br> The root user often has write permissions to /usr/share but they are<br> still not supposed to write to /usr/share directly, as explained above.<br> So "can" and "should" are two different pairs of shoes, no?<br> <br> <br> >> e.g. when XDG_DATA_HOME just contains regular /usr/share<br> >> like content that is shipped by the upstream application<br> ><br> > I think you are misunderstanding the specification. Why should<br> > XDG_DATA_HOME contain this data?<br> <br> For instance, because someone installed an application just to its own<br> user space because they cannot get root permissions or do not want to<br> install for every single user.<br> <br> <br> > Everything that is shipped by the<br> > distribution is already available in the XDG_DATA_DIRS, that's what<br> > they are for.<br> <br> As I said: user-specific installation when system-wide installation is<br> not or not a good option.<br> <br> <br> > Only relevant data shall be put into XDG_DATA_HOME.<br> <br> I'm not sure what "relevant" means.<br> <br> <br> >> What does it take to get a new version of basedir-spec released in<br> >> general � is that documented somewhere?<br> ><br> > Great question. I've opened<br> > <a href="https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgitlab.freedesktop.org%2Fxdg%2Fxdg-specs%2F-%2Fissues%2F70&data=04%7C01%7CJohn.Bollinger%40stjude.org%7C6d01033bc5a842ef540808d8cbb2f26f%7C22340fa892264871b677d3b3e377af72%7C0%7C0%7C637483316719766228%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=t88rgPSh5g3cBmX3EP4ReU2pzUEDL3hwRBPOqXuet%2BY%3D&reserved=0"> https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgitlab.freedesktop.org%2Fxdg%2Fxdg-specs%2F-%2Fissues%2F70&data=04%7C01%7CJohn.Bollinger%40stjude.org%7C6d01033bc5a842ef540808d8cbb2f26f%7C22340fa892264871b677d3b3e377af72%7C0%7C0%7C637483316719766228%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=t88rgPSh5g3cBmX3EP4ReU2pzUEDL3hwRBPOqXuet%2BY%3D&reserved=0</a><br> <br> Cool.<br> <br> Is commit a0d218ad7da9f01fc5d01867f361aecc5cd61342 considered to be the<br> official version 0.7?<br> <br> No comment about my concern about "portable" and "important" in the<br> current text about XDG_STATE_HOME ?<br> <br> Best<br> <br> <br> <br> Sebastian<br> _______________________________________________<br> xdg mailing list<br> xdg@lists.freedesktop.org<br> <a href="https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.freedesktop.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fxdg&data=04%7C01%7CJohn.Bollinger%40stjude.org%7C6d01033bc5a842ef540808d8cbb2f26f%7C22340fa892264871b677d3b3e377af72%7C0%7C0%7C637483316719766228%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=aSXrxb2cBYOYLGhIb9SPLcU9fmGgEhHxgx34IsyhDAY%3D&reserved=0">https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.freedesktop.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fxdg&data=04%7C01%7CJohn.Bollinger%40stjude.org%7C6d01033bc5a842ef540808d8cbb2f26f%7C22340fa892264871b677d3b3e377af72%7C0%7C0%7C637483316719766228%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=aSXrxb2cBYOYLGhIb9SPLcU9fmGgEhHxgx34IsyhDAY%3D&reserved=0</a><br> </div> </span></font></div> <br> <hr> <font face="Arial" color="Gray" size="2"><br> Email Disclaimer: www.stjude.org/emaildisclaimer<br> Consultation Disclaimer: www.stjude.org/consultationdisclaimer<br> </font> </body> </html>