We're considering simplification of the process of configuring the location(s) for packages at ./configure time. Please direct comments and use cases to XEmacs Design <xemacs-design(a)xemacs.org&gt;, and CC Ben Wing <ben(a)xemacs.org&gt; (Reply-To is set). We're interested in use cases for specifying package location. Given that currently XEmacs usually attempts to autodetect packages based on the location of the `xemacs' binary and the installation prefix, we hope that it would be unnecessary. The context is that Ben Wing has proposed a patch which provides --package-prefix as a simple interface to --package-path. That is, --package-prefix=$dir is equivalent to specifying --package-path=$early::$dir/site-packages:$dir/xemacs-packages:$dir/mule-packages with the exact specification of $early under discussion (Ben specified $early as ~/.xemacs, but that is probably incorrect.) Here are some considerations that have been advanced in discussion so far. o Are multiple prefixes allowed? o If not, does that mean we are deprecating multiple hierarchies? o If not, we still need --package-path, don't we? o Is it a good idea to enforce ~/.xemacs as the early-packages prefix? o If --package-prefix forces ~/.xemacs as the early-packages prefix, we still need --package-path, don't we? o How should --package-prefix interact with EMACSPACKAGEPATH? o Should there be an EMACSPACKAGEPREFIX environment variable? o What do --package-path and --package-prefix imply about where package-admin should install packages? o How should --package-prefix and --package-path interact with --with-prefix=no? o Does handling --package-prefix in the general case require changes to the package-path-finding code? We also should consider whether simplification of package location specification interacts with longer term plans for the packages: o Getting rid of the special treatment of mule-packages. o Inverting the package hierarchy (ie, true run-in-place package sources). -- Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering University of Tsukuba http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/ Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Economics of Information Communication and Computation Systems Experimental Economics, Microeconomic Theory, Game Theory