Re: /usr/local/lib file placement

[Niklas Hallqvist <niklas@appli.se>]

> Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 10:17:22 -0500
> From: Matthew Patton <matthew.patton@ra.pae.osd.mil>
> 
> I was looking at what/where the ssh/samba ports dropped files and was not
> happy with cruft being stuffed into /usr/local/lib. This directory is
> reserved for libraries (or pseudo libraries) is it not?

Libraries, and other support files I'd say.

> ssh/samba stuff example files in there. They should instead be in
> /usr/local/share[/examples] right? I *can* grok tcl8.0 putting files in
> ./lib just as a counter example. Anyone else feel the same way?

/usr/local/share or possibly /usr/share/local would be nice for
shareable files, yes.

> Oh, also can anyone elaborate on why we don't use /usr/local/etc for those
> 3rd party daemons, especially those from the ports collection? Shouldn't
> there be a Chinese wall between true system stuff and add-ons?

This is a matter of religion I'd say.  Personally I feel like there is
one host-specific place for configuration files, and that is /etc.  I
don't think there is any need to differentiate between "true system"
and add-ons when it comes to configuration.  Besides, it is not
entirely uncommon to NFS-mount /usr/local for a set of workstations,
so host-specific configuration should preferrably not be there, just
like run-time data should be kept out of there as well, and be put in
/var.

My rules of thumb

/usr/local should be possible to share between same arch, readonly.
/usr/local/share shareable between all archs, or perhaps: /usr/share
		 could carry a local dir.
/var read/write host-specific
/etc host-specific configuration

Just my $.02
Niklas