[Gross] Makefile cleanup for installing grossd.conf

[Teemu Toivanen]

I'm not a packager and lately I've been avoiding src only projects. 

That said here is my 2 cents worth. 
I would expect "make install" not to screw with my config files and
therefore would never want them to be overwritten. I can accept that
example config file is located in package doc and no default file is
created (though for initial src install it's nice that it will be
created). 

As for packagers the "package create environment" should always be clean
and therefore there will be no problem with "old config".

Cheers, 
  Teemu
 

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 15:31 +0300, Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
> Eino Tuominen wrote:
> > Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I found this bit in the Makefile.am:
> >>
> >> install-data-local:
> >> if test ! -f $(sysconfdir)/grossd.conf; then $(INSTALL_DATA)
> >> 	$(srcdir)/doc/examples/grossd.conf $(sysconfdir); fi
> >>
> >> As a minor point, I dislike the test for existence of grossd.conf.
> >> Sure, that's handy when testing and developing, but those sorts of
> >> things in the Makefile make things hard for the package maintainers -
> >> and can confuse some users.
> >
> > Can you give me an example, please. I have thought that overwriting
> > existing config would make things even more confusing, when upgrading.
> 
> Well, the issue is not that the behaviour would be confusing in
> itself, it's just that it's different from the common norm on how most
> packages do it.
> 
> As a user, I might expect the file to be overwritten on 'make install'
> (especially if my prefix is something else than /) and then wonder why
> nothing works as the configuration file is still from the old version
> - though I don't think I would ever 'upgrade' a piece of software just
> by compiling a new version and saying make install.
> 
> But, like said, a minor point, perhaps relevant only to me.