Package: debian-policy
Severity: normal
The FHS requires:
[22] Miscellaneous architecture-independent application-specific static files
and subdirectories must be placed in /usr/share.
Therefore, technically every package that ships a single architecture
independent file in /usr/lib has a RC bug. It's easy to see how absurd
this is:
find -type f /usr/lib | xargs file | grep ' text'
Which finds 7500 files on my system, which are only the tip of the iceberg.
A good example is /usr/lib/git-core/, which contains a mix of scripts
and compiled binaries. To split this, git would have to be patched to
look in two places, which would make it a little slower (or larger),
make the package diverge more from upstream[1], and cause ongoing work
for the package maintainer as the implentation of various programs
changes.
The fact is that we're doing a good job separating out a big chunk of
arch indep data in /usr/share. My laptop has 6.7 gb there, vs 3.7 gb in
/usr/lib. But we're only doing it on a least-effort basis, because there
are few compelling use cases for sharing /usr/share between modern
systems.
So, I propse adding to the list of exceptions in policy section 9.1.1:
The FHS requirement that architecture-independent application-specific
static files be located in /usr/share is relaxed to a suggestion.
In particular, a subdirectory of /usr/lib may be used by a package
(or a collection of packages) to hold a mixture of architecture-independent
and architecture-dependent files. However, when a directory is
entirely composed of architecture-independent files, it should be
located in /usr/share.
--
see shy jo
[1] Sometimes in ways that break interoperability, for example
git-sh-setup(1) documents an arch indep file that things
rely on being located in git's --exec-path.
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