More on genttoo + fhs

[Collins]

Delete now if you are not interested.

After the interchange with dep this weeked, I submitted a query to
gentoo to get their understanding of the fhs and what is appropriate
for gentoo.  I got back quite a few responses from developers and
users.  

Not surprisingly, no one at gentoo is interested in "stomping all over
the fhs,", as alleged earlier.  The essential picture is this:

1) gentoo has made a conscious effort to structure their distro
according to the fhs, including making changes to remove things like
kde from /opt because they were told that was not allowed.

2) The fhs does not really provide a very good (or any, IMO) solution
for large packages with multiple, incompatible versions and other
dependancies.

3) It's not a good idea (per gentoo) to have products in the /usr
hierarchy dependant on products in the /opt hierarchy and vice versa,
as would be the case with both kde and gnome offerings, since many
simple packages that are installed in the /usr hierarchy depend on
either kde or gnome.

4) Gentoo believes that they have a very workable comprimise.

5) Following the fhs is infinitely more complex and frustrating than
dep would have you believe.

6) gentoo would love to have someone with greater understanding of the
fhs make concrete suggestions for improvements in this respect. 
gentoo-dev at gentoo.org and gentoo-user at gentoo.org are still open lists,
so present your concrete suggestions on one of these lists.

Enjoy,
-- 
Collins Richey - Denver Area - WWTLRD?
gentoo(since 01/01/01) 2.4.18+(ext3) xfce-sylpheed-mozilla