New filesystem standard - do we want it ?
I read that Daniel Quinlan has just sent to c.o.l.a the `FHS 2.0'
which the successor to the FSSTND group has been working on.
IMO it is in some ways a bad standard, particularly insofar as is
contains a number of gratuitous changes made partially in the name of
BSD compatibility and partially out of an IMO broken or mistimed sense
of aesthetics. In particular:
* /var/lib has been renamed /var/state.
* The mail spool is now specified as /var/mail, rather than
/var/spool/mail, and various other junk that BSD puts in /var directly
was grandfathered in (eg, /var/lib/games changes to /var/games).
Some of these changes might have been a reasonable thing to do before
the FSSTND was released and widely deployed. Now they are IMO
unreasonable. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to divert these
changes by talking to the FHS list. I was accused of being
`linux-centric'.
The FHS 2 has some good parts, though. /var/cache and /usr/share are
now specified, and there's something about /opt.
My preferred stance for Debian would be to specify that we follow the
FHS but with certain exceptions. The exceptions ought to be decided
on here, but broadly speaking I think we should make an exception
where a directory or hierarchy has been moved from its location the
FSSTND, without any good technical reason.
BTW, I refuse to be held responsible for the consequences if people
think we should attempt to move /var/lib/dpkg.
Ian.
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