[dev] Seamless/streamlined configuring/upgrading Horde/apps

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Josh Endries <josh at endries.org>:

> Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:
>> - Until now, it's perfectly possible to run Horde without a  
>> database. Requiring a database for configuration would break this.  
>> Granted, there won't be many people out there still using Horde  
>> without a DB, since they will miss a lot of features, but still.
>
> Yeah, I thought about this. I think one would be hard pressed to  
> find someone running Horde without a DB, but it's a value call as to  
> whether or not you want to support that environment. It's hard to  
> justify, IMHO, with sqlite available, but I wouldn't be surprised if  
> others thought differently.

I'd like to be able to have a base config that's in the filesystem,  
with additional policies on top of it. This would let someone who  
needed the flexibility of PHP configuration use it, but would also let  
us build a db-based config on top of it as "better for most people"  
experience.

>> Maybe different storage backends for configurations are an option,  
>> so you can pick between storing the configuration in db vs. php  
>> files.
>
> Another semi-alternative could be allowing config files to exist  
> elsewhere. Instead of looking in conf/, check Array(/etc/horde,  
> /etc/horde/$app, /usr/local/etc/horde, ./conf) or something like  
> that. This would allow drop-in replacements (or side-by-side  
> replacements), if one hasn't customized very heavily.

This would be covered by the policy idea above, fwiw. There's some  
musing in the wiki about this under the name Horde_Policy, but it's a  
bit more complicated than we probably ultimately need, and needs to be  
revisited.

-chuck