Alright, Andrew Morton indicated that he liked this patch but the idea 
needed discussion and mindshare. I asked Con Kolivas if it made sense to 
go in his desktop patchset for people to try: he said he liked it too 
but it's not his area, and that it should be discussed here.

To clarify, I'm proposing this patch for eventual mainline inclusion.

It adds a simple bit of API - a symlink in /proc/pid - which makes it 
easy to build relocatable software:

   ./configure --prefix=/proc/self/exedir/..

This is useful for a variety of purposes:

* Distributing programs that are runnable from CD or USB key (useful for
   Linux magazine cover disks)

* Binary packages that can be installed anywhere, for instance, to your
   home directory

* Network admins can more easily place programs on network mounts

I'm sure you can think of others. You can patch software to be 
relocatable today, but it's awkward and error prone. A simple patch can 
allow us to get it "for free" on any UNIX software that uses the 
idiomatic autotools build system.

So .... does anybody have any objections to this? Would you like to see 
it go in? Speak now or forever hold your peace! :)

thanks -mike