Subject: Re: bug#48543: Feature request: put ELN cache in $XDG_CACHE_HOME by default

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 07:01:50 -0700

Visuwesh <[email-masked]> writes:

> Why not use XDG_DATA_HOME in that case?

I realize that the XDG Base Directory Specification could be more clear
on these details, but I believe that a study of the current practices as
well as previous discussions on e.g. the XDG mailing list, in Debian,
Arch and so on, would lead to the conclusion that this would be wrong.

It is generally understood that XDG_DATA_HOME is roughly analogus to
/usr/share and XDG_CACHE_HOME is roughly analogous to /var/cache -- one
is volatile, the other one is not.

For starters, please compare the contents of ~/.local/share with
~/.cache on your machine to see what other software puts where.

Next, to understand how these issues are often approached, I invite you
to study references such as:

    https://wiki.debian.org/XDGBaseDirectorySpecification
    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory
    https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/XDGConfigFolders
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259356

There are more to find obviously, but that should be plenty to get the
discussion started.

> It doesn't get cleared I think.

AFAIK, $XDG_CACHE_HOME also doesn't "get cleared" arbitrarily.  There
has to be some action on behalf of the user for that to happen.