On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 01:31:06PM -0400, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: > Do we have any policy/recommendation forbidding/disadvising having > subdirectories under /usr/bin? > Conventionally, for packages which ship bulk of command line tools with > possible naming conflicts we seems to place them under /usr/lib/PACKAGE > (often regardless them being arch-dep or not) > I am packaging CMTK, where upstream agreed also to deliver a wrapper > script (/usr/bin/cmtk) so there would be a single point of entry to run > any needed command (in similar fashion to git), but also he made all > cmdline tools become available from ... /usr/bin/CMTK > I have checked FHS which only says: > "The following directories, or symbolic links to directories, must be in /usr/bin..." > so it seems to be ok to have subdirectories under /usr/bin (for /bin > there is strict "must not"), and I failed to find something in > debian policy forbidding or allowing taht. So would it be ok? No, it's not ok. The per-package subdir should be created instead under /usr/lib, and /usr/bin/cmtk can dispatch subcommands over there. /usr/bin is on the path. Subdirs of /usr/bin are not on the path and should not have to be added. Therefore there is no point in having subdirs of /usr/bin, regardless of whether the FHS currently makes it explicit that it's prohibited. (It actually *is* a requirement from the FHS, because the FHS says that a subdir in /usr/lib is the place where things must be placed; there's just no backlink from the definition of /usr/bin that makes this clear without reading the full FHS for context.) -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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