Other installers putting stuff in /opt/local

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jul 31, 2015, at 8:14 AM, Adam Dershowitz wrote:

> On Jul 30, 2015, at 12:39 PM, Joshua Root wrote:
> 
>> On 2015-7-31 00:37 , Daniel J. Luke wrote:
>>> Do we have a doc somewhere where we point other projects to when they’re doing this? (a list of reasons why it’s a bad idea, etc.)?
>>> 
>>> I just noticed a project doing it and opened a bug in their bug tracker about it - but it would be nice to have that documents some place I could link them to instead of having to explain it if they don’t immediately realize it’s a bad idea.
>> 
>> We have <https://trac.macports.org/wiki/ProblemHotlist#xmlwf> which
>> documents how it affects our users at least.
>> 
>> - Josh
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> 
> I believe that there is also a risk of it breaking existing installed ports, and it would be good to have that explained somewhere as well. 
> For example if you install port A and it installs a library.  Then, some other project installs a different version of the same library (different variant for example)  in /opt/local it could break port A.  

Certainly. I seem to field more than one such question on the mailing list or in the issue tracker each month. 

> I know that I came up against an application that wanted to install this way, and I was able to get in touch with the developers and get it fixed.  But, it did take a bit to explain, and it would have been great to point to a link that explains why this is a bad idea.  They did ultimately change to using a different path for the libraries that they build with Macports.

I agree we should have a wiki page written up with more information on this problem, both as it pertains to users and as it pertains to the developers who distribute the installers that cause the problem.