GNU bug report logs - #53447
[PATCH] doc: Unset environment variables considered harmful

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From: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
To: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 53447 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler <at> gmail.com>
Subject: [bug#53447] Introducing ‘GUIX_’-prefixed environment variables
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 20:56:41 -0500

Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> I like to see this as a bug, so I've opened one as 53514; Guix should
>> strive to not mess with the host environment, and setting global
>> variables used by both Guix and a potentially foreign host goes against
>> this.  The proper fix would be to patch all applications in Guix to use
>> Guix-specific variables, such as GUIX_XDG_DATA_DIRS instead of
>> XDG_DATA_DIRS.
>
> This approach has its appeal (like in the ‘GUIX_PYTHONPATH’ case), but
> there’s a tension with our other unwritten (?) guideline that we should
> modify packages as little as possible.
>
> Such wide-ranging changes would have the unfortunate effect that they’d
> make Guix packages “special”: documentation, bug reports, suggestions
> you’d find online would apply to the “real” package, but maybe not to
> the Guix one.  That is a situation we’d rather avoid IMO.

True; but after people would get a hang that in Guix most environment
variables would be prefixed with 'GUIX_', I don't think it'd be that big
of an issue.  Maintaining the patches would be where the burden would
lie, in my opinion.

> ‘XDG_DATA_DIRS’ is a real problem though.  In large part that’s because
> its purpose is too broad—what “data dirs” are we talking about?  It
> would be ideal if we could progressively replace ‘XDG_DATA_DIRS’ search
> path specifications with more specific environment variables, when they
> exist, or perhaps by using ‘wrap-program’ instead of having search path
> specs.

Are there any more specific environment variables that exist that can
replace XDG_DATA_DIRS?  I'm not too knowledgeable about the freedesktop
specs, but I'm somewhat skeptical?  If they don't yet exist, that makes
this idea much less actionable.

Thanks,

Maxim

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