One of the main problems with installed binary packages is that there is no guarantee that the programs, libraries, and other package contents will wind up in the same absolute location as the one they were built and installed in. Large packaging organizations such as Redhat and SUSE can offer this guarantee because they ship entire operating systems. However computers involved in grids are independently administered which means that software locations are determined by the local administrator (or user for non-root installations).

A package is considered relocatable if there are no absolute paths that are embedded in the package contents and that are used by the software. Paths that are in text files can be modified during runtime by setup packages. Alternatively packages can use environmental variables to locate files.