>> Policy 6.1 says >> | Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally have a >> | path prepended to them. >> >> Ie, programs that are on PATH should be found via the PATH rather than >> by hardcoding /usr/bin/foo or whatever. In general, I think we >> normally, at least in software written specifically for Debian, apply >> this not just to maintainer scripts but to all program execution. > > I agree that it's a common practice for software written specifically > for Debian. I'm not convinced it's a common practice elsewhere, and i'm > definitely not convinced that we should mandate divergence from upstream > for this purpose.
Just as a datapoint, in other communities there is actually a trend in the opposite direction. For example, for the Python ecosystem there is an increasing drive to establish a "system Python" that ignores Python modules in /usr/local and $PYTHONPATH, specifically to avoid potential interference of user installed modules with distribution Python scripts. I have a lot of sympathie for this idea, and I think it would be good to keep this in mind when discussing potential clarifications of policy. Best, Nikolaus -- GPG encrypted emails preferred. Key id: 0xD113FCAC3C4E599F Fingerprint: ED31 791B 2C5C 1613 AF38 8B8A D113 FCAC 3C4E 599F »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«