RFC: Merging X11BASE to LOCALBASE

[John Merryweather Cooper]

Dejan Lesjak wrote:
> Hello,
>
> There were a couple of debates already concerning /usr/X11R6 as prefix for X11 
> ports and a bunch of other ports that currently by default install there. 
> Quite some people were, when creating a new port that depends on X11, 
> wandering whether to put it in X11BASE or LOCALBASE. More than once a 
> question of whether the prefix /usr/X11R6 should be just dropped or at least 
> only retained for core X11 distribution. With the upcoming X.org 7.x ports 
> there is perhaps the opportunity to do the prefix merger along that.
> Moving X11 prefix to LOCALBASE would simplify above dilemma. It would be also 
> more similar to where linux distributions are going (at least Gentoo, Debian 
> and Fedora deprecated /usr/X11R6 in favour of /usr which, while 
> not /usr/local is the location of where all packages install - depending on 
> X11 or not). If I remember correctly from previous discussions, it would be 
> more convenient to people with separate mounts for installed packages as 
> well. /usr/local is also the default value for --prefix configure option for 
> X.org packages.
> So it is general intention to go with /usr/local or rather ${LOCALBASE} as 
> prefix for X11 ports. If anyone feels that this is horribly wrong, please 
> speak up.
>
> On behalf of x11 team,
> Dejan
>   
What impact (if any) would the doubling or tripling of the number of 
files in ./bin have on searching along PATH? Would we be shooting 
ourselves in the foot if we did this?

jmc