having prefix='' by default is non standard and confusing

Metadata

Project: snapcraft (launchpad)
Number: #1590831
Type: issue
State: open
Author: ~seb128
Labels: —
Created: 2016-06-09 03:12 PM UTC
Updated: 2016-12-14 01:35 PM UTC
Closed: —

Current evaluation

Autotools plugin defaults to an empty prefix when installing via destdir, causing files (e.g. glib schemas) to land in $snap/share instead of $snap/usr/share. Reporter worked around it with configflags: [--prefix=/usr]. No maintainer response; 0 comments, no labels, ~10 years old.

Suggested action: needs triage

Reason: The issue has no labels, no assignee, and zero comments — no maintainer has ever acknowledged or categorised it, so it needs triage. It is ~10 years old with no activity, but the underlying concern (empty prefix vs /usr default for destdir installs) is a real design question that could still affect packaging, so it should not be auto-closed as stale without a maintainer confirming whether the current plugin behaviour still applies or was intentionally chosen.

Impact: 45 Quick Win: 27.0 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 60 Support Request: 25

Issue body

The autotools plugin default to an empty prefix if you install by destdir (which is default), that's quite non standard and can create confusion, is there any reason to not use the upstream default (/usr/local) or the distribution default (/usr)? I hit the issue while packaging gucharmap, the glib schemas got installed in $snap/share but the other schemas coming from the deb parts are in $snap/usr/share, our default wrapper set things to look in $snap/usr/share and it the program was not finding its schemas. Things works after using "configflags: [--prefix=/usr]" but ideally that would be the default

Evaluation history

Date	Model	Scores	Action	Summary
2026-09-01 07:18 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.8-27b	Impact: 45 Quick Win: 27.0 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 60 Support Request: 25	needs triage	Autotools plugin defaults to an empty prefix when installing via destdir, causing files (e.g. glib schemas) to land in $snap/share instead of $snap/usr/share. Reporter worked around it with configflags: [--prefix=/usr]. No maintainer response; 0 comments, no labels, ~10 years old.
2026-07-23 11:46 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 15 Confidence: 90 Support Request: 10	close stale	Autotools plugin defaults to empty prefix when using destdir, causing non-standard paths and schema lookup failures. Issue is over 10 years old with no maintainer response.
2026-07-22 12:18 PM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 95 Complexity: 15 Confidence: 85 Support Request: 10	close stale	Autotools plugin defaults to empty prefix during destdir installs, causing schema path mismatches in packaging. No maintainer response in over 10 years. Likely outdated given Snapcraft's significant evolution.
2026-07-09 05:48 PM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 15 Confidence: 85 Support Request: 10	close stale	Autotools plugin defaults to empty prefix during destdir installs, causing non-standard paths and schema lookup failures. No maintainer response in over 9 years.
2026-06-20 02:19 PM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 95 Complexity: 15 Confidence: 85 Support Request: 10	close stale	Autotools plugin defaults to empty prefix with destdir installs, causing non-standard paths and schema lookup failures. Suggests defaulting to /usr/local or /usr. Open, unassigned, awaiting triage.

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