Re: multi-platform, FSSTND compliance, and /usr/share/

[kaih@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)]

harpo@udel.edu (Will Lowe)  wrote on 30.01.98 in <Pine.LNX.3.95q.980130162817.3514A-100000@rivendell.rdny.udel.edu>:

> On Fri, 30 Jan 1998, Yann Dirson wrote:

> > [6.3] "no program should ever reference anything in /usr/share."
> No clue.  Might be becase /usr/share could be shared across different
> architectures (hence the name) and therefore isn't likely to reside on a
> local disk in an NFS environment,  so references to a filesystem that
> might not be around could be bad.

No.

The reason is that the specification for /usr/share only tells you what  
type of thing should go there, it doesn't enumerate all the files.

So, distributions will differ in what they do or don't put there.

Remember that FSSTND/FHS is about distribution compatibility. If you want  
programs to work for all distributions, then in cases like these, you want  
to separate interface from implementation.

The "traditional" path is the interface. /usr/share is the implementation.

It's similar to the /usr/lib/X11 symlink.


MfG Kai