Re: Settle for /usr symlink (!)

[Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@trick.fig.org>]

>>>>> Brian May writes:

 BM> There seems to be some debate as to whether we should remove /usr
 BM> as a symlink later on - I will stay out of this for now, but has
 BM> anyone considered (yet) what needs to be altered in Debian
 BM> packages for this to work? If not, then I will...

I've considered it.  It's intractable. ;)

Seriously, though, there are too many buried dependencies to make it
worthwhile.  Let's get the symlink in place, wait for more and more
people to use it (i.e. maybe 20 years or so), then let natural order
gradually kill all the /usr references.

In 10-20 years, everybody with a /usr symlink is going to type
/bin instead of /usr/bin when they write new programs, so they'll do
the work for us.

If we try to change the convention any sooner, we'll waste a lot of
effort.  Provide a channel for the river, then let it fill up the lake
for you.  Moving the water bucket by bucket is just a waste of time,
and won't get it done any sooner.

-- 
 Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@fig.org>  //\ I'm a FIG (http://www.fig.org/)
Committed to freedom and diversity \// I use GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)