[Fedora-packaging] Re: /srv

[Axel Thimm]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 03:39:51PM -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Wednesday 27 June 2007 15:23:27 Axel Thimm wrote:
> > /srv is already in various FHS-compliant use on thousands of
> > sites. You can't touch it really. And if you were to create a
> > /vendor-default-and-examples/srv then you can use /var/lib/foo as
> > well.
> >
> > In fact many "data carrying" applications like name servers, MTAs
> > etc. use /var in the FHS, although technically they would have to move
> > that content to /srv, by /srv's definition.
> 
> I think the key thing here is that the FHS seems contradictory with regard 
> to /srv and we really would like some clarification so that we can create 
> appropriate packaging guidelines.

The FHS is knowingly partial "contradictory" in some places, because
the FHS' self-assigned task is not to design a hierarchy on the
blackboard, but to capture best practices. The (old) discussion about
bin64 or arch'd bindirs in general for example shows that while the
FHS has been favourable towards this, they decided to not introduce it
until a distribution shows actual interest in implementing it.

People are concentrating their system's data under /srv mainly for
mount and backup strategies, not because /var/lib wouldn't fit. The
simple singleton non-virtualized applications can live very nicely
under /var as they have actually been doing for a couple of
decades. It's the more complex setups that make /srv attractive, and
populating /srv with a fixed layout will make Fedora too inflexible
for exactly the traget group that would benefit the most.

So actually introducing a fixed layout into /srv party discards its
existence. Consider /srv more similar to /usr/local and /home instead
of any other vendor controlled filesystem path.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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