
Simon Marlow wrote:
This was a conscious decision - making install-location-neutral binary distributions is hard in general, and not always possible. GHC goes to some lengths to support it. Most other packaging systems do *not* support this (eg. neither RPM nor BSD ports do). [...]
I don't know about BSD ports, but RPM definitely supports relocatable packages, see e.g.: http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/ch-rpm-reloc.html The problem is that most .spec writers (including me :-) don't take the trouble to make a package relocatable. I'm quite sure that we could e.g. make all our fptools stuff (ghc, alex, happy, ...) relocatable, but at least for me this has not a high priority. I'd be happy if somebody takes the time, though... :-) Cheers, S.