topdir proposal

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

| We definitely support a critical appraisal and overhaul of the
| path-handling and installation machinery,

PS: Sven, thank you *very much* for taking the time to think about the build system constructively, and to propose solutions.  As Simon says, we know it's not a thing of beauty and we're receptive to improvement!

(One constraint: we need to make sure that the whole build process works on Windows as well as Unix.)

best wishes

Simon