OCD programmers and backwards compatibility :-).

[Les Mikesell]

Alan wrote:
>> "Linux in general" would be better off if programs didn't have to know 
>> about a
>> special layout just for Linux..  Remember, most of the apps we user 
>> aren't written
>> specifically  for Linux and calling your layout LSB sounds about as 
>> likely as
>> calling your character set ASCII in terms of getting any kind of  universal
>> agreement.  Why not try to make things the same across the *bsd's, Solaris,
>> OSX, etc. too, if you are going to have to deal with the problems of changes
>> anyway?
>>     
>
> Perhaps you should read up on the FHS work a bit more before commenting.
> It draws upon the basic work done in SunOS in particular for making NFS
> work well, and traditional Unix layout, as well as 4BSD, SVID and other
> related material. It's also followed pretty closely by a lot more than
> Linux, and the lack of a "Linux" in the title of the standard is
> intentional.
>
>   

I've  heard of the project before, but can't put my finger on anything 
that the
current version provides that couldn't have been done with backwards
compatibility as Solaris has done.   Instead we've had a decade of slow
and painful changes to new and more or less arbitrary locations.  (/opt is
in one year, /srv the next...)

--- 
    Les Mikesell
      lesmikesell at gmail.com