> > > I don't want to remove or change anything in the base system, as it will
> > > be overriden in the next update (no, I don't want to tweak my makefiles
> > > nor sources).  Using a wrapper is like "replacing your system utilities
> > > with theirs", but in a clean way.
> >
> > If you equate "update" with "update base+packages" then nothing will be
> > overwritten in any update even if CUPS is installed in the base system
> > hierarchy because you'll always re-install CUPS after any update of the
> > base system and be as happy as you could possibly be in that situation.
> 
> IMHO, *that* would suck. Most of us are free to upgrade the base
> system or X or packages independently as the need arises, or as the
> whim strikes us, and you'd lose that.
> 
> There must be some long-time users of CUPS or LPrng around. How are
> they dealing with the issues now? (...and where are they? ;-))

We'd been using CUPS for about two years, and we grumbled and cursed
every time we had to update the base software and remade a whole
lot of symlinks by hand. Having something akin to the wrapper for
sendmail would have made our lives easier, precisely because of
the issues mentioned in previous mails in this thread (e.g. "lots
of programs call /usr/bin/lpr directly." - one of the same main
reasons that a wrapper for sendmail exists.)