FreeTDS Development Group

[James K. Lowden <jklowden AT speakeasy.org>]

I am having doubts about the wisdom of defaulting --sysconfdir to
/etc/freetds.  

My first attempt was flawed, and Frediano heroically fixed it, somewhat. 
But if you do "./configure --help", it still says:

  --sysconfdir=DIR        read-only single-machine data in DIR
[PREFIX/etc]

I assumed all this was settable in predictable ways once I RTFM.  But I
did read the autoconf documentation, as well as 

http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/autobook/autobook.html

and nowhere -- nowhere -- is a way described to override the sysconfdir
default default.  Change the default prefix?  No problem, done.  But
sysconfdir is always always described in terms of PREFIX.  Go ahead and
grep through the autoconf sources, too, why don't you?  You won't find
anything there, either.  

You know what Harry Truman said.  "When I'm wrong, I change my mind.  What
do you do?" (Change the code, Mr. President?)  

So I'm thinking, better switch than fight.  Let freetds.conf be written to
/usr/local/etc.  If that's what autoconf wants to do, it must be what lots
of packages do, it can't be all wrong.  I personally like having packages
create directories for themselves in /etc, but I don't want to impose my
idiosyncrasies on everyone else.  Well, not this particular one, at any
rate.  

In any case, we can't very well have "configure --help" say the default is
one thing when it's really another.  Even my mother would think that's
just silly.  

I'm sorry to bring this up again but I couldn't very well switch it
without telling anyone. ;)

--jkl