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by curt15 299 days ago
Where else would ./install-3rdparty-software.sh write to? Should it spray files all over /usr?
2 comments

It shouldn't do anything until the user has told it where the files should end up. It's an unpackaged program, there is no sane place to put it that doesn't have a high chance of conflicting with something else.
That's only due to a lack of standardization. I think a default install to a vendor-specific directory under /opt is a sane place to put it, and there's a very low chance that would conflict with something else.

But sure, absolutely, an installer should prompt the user for an install location, and I think a default under /opt is probably among the best defaults possible, if we consider installing outside $HOME to be reasonable.

Honestly there should be no install-bs.sh and you just bind everything into the file tree as needed. At least that is how it works on Plan 9 which simplifies a lot of things like path which is just '/bin.'