>At one time, many of the makefiles had "install -d" commands in the 
>install targets so that directories were created.  This was changed when 
>we found that the "mtree" files (in src/etc/mtree/*) conflicted with the 
>user and group ownership or file permissions set in the makefiles.  Since 
>it is easier to maintain one set of mtree files compared to several 
>hundred makefiles, we decided that mtree would be used to create any
>needed directories.
>
>All you should need to do to create missing directories and to fix 
>incorrect ownership and permissions is to make "distrib-dirs" (or something 
>like that) in ~/src/etc.
>
>As to why I think "install -d -c" is a bad idea: How often will the
>directory and the file you are installing share exactly the same ownership
>and permissions?  And how difficult is it to and an additional line to the
>makefile so it is clear that both a directory is to be created and a file 
>is to be installed?
>
>	--jtc

You make an excellent point for the NetBSD system taken as a whole.
I like simple, kinda keeps things at my level. 

There is also discussion about the installation (and deinstallation) of
packages. One of the side benefits that I hope comes from that discussion
is that what is currently NetBSD will be divided into several smaller
packages.  Would you recommend the mtree solution for the average 
installation package? Would mtree be appropriate for X?

Larry