On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 11:43:08AM +0000, Justin Haaheim wrote:
> The same reason you decided to spend the time to make that little ascii 
> picture.  ;-)

man banner

> On a slightly more serious note:
> 1) users should be able to customize how things are set up on their 
> computer.  Hell, even windows lets you move around default directories.

Cool, customize it.

> 2) standardization.  installers should look to one place to find out 
> where to install themselves instead of assuming or guessing and getting 
> programs installed in /usr/lib/ and /usr/local etc. etc. (not /etc).

"Which would that place be?"
"/foo"
"What if I fancy to move /foo to /baz?"
"You configure that into /metabar/superfoo."
"But I don't have a metabar either: it is bluesky on my machine."

Do you see where this is getting?

You have to agree on a fixed point in the system that will describe it
to the world.

> the point is not that we need to change it, its that it should be 
> dynamic enough so that it's possible.  Laying it out the way I suggested 
> is just basic abstraction.  Every program shouldn't know where it's 
> going to be installed on person x's computer.

It is possible, you just lose what the distributions can do for you.
If you do a ./configure --help on a behaving source distribution, it
allows you to set all the files to your heart content.

***

A user decides what goes on within his own home directory. He has no
business mucking around /. If he does, he gets to keep the pieces...

Cheers,
florin

-- 

"NT is to UNIX what a doughnut is to a particle accelerator."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20030505/0cbb95e5/attachment.pgp