Hey, So, THAT Was Fun, Huh?

[Chris Waters]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2001 at 11:38:20PM -0700, Evan Prodromou wrote:

> "/path/to" is hypothetical, of course. If you actually have a
> "/path/to" directory, you are in violation of the FHS and will be
> punished to the full legal extent of debian-policy.

Not quite true -- what the FHS really says (in essence) is that
_vendors_ are not allowed to make any assumptions about the presence
or absence of a dir such as "/path/to".  Users and admins can do what
they want outside the scope of the FHS, as long as it doesn't actively
interfere with the assumptions the FHS does allow.

For example, I used to have "/dos/c" and "/dos/d" back when I was
dual-booting.  Neither of these would have violated the FHS *because*
I created them in my role as admin/owner of the machine.  The FHS
merely guarantees that these dirs will be safe from outside
interference.  Nobody but me (and other users of my system) is allowed
to mess with them.

OTOH, if I did "mv /bin/* /usr/bin; rmdir /bin", then I'd be violating
the FHS (and breaking all the software that assumes, e.g., that
there's a /bin/sh to execute).

Just a quibble, but I want to make sure that nobody gets scared of
accidentally "deFHS-izing" their systems by creating some simple,
useful directories.

cheers
-- 
Chris Waters           |  Pneumonoultra-        osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org       |  microscopicsilico-    to fit into a single
or xtifr@speakeasy.net |  volcaniconi-          standalone haiku