Greg A. Woods writes:

> I really wish the FreeBSD folk had read the hier(7) manual page too and
> discovered /usr/contrib.  Just because they did it ``wrong'' doesn't
> mean everyone else should fall in step behind them -- NetBSD in the
> least!  ;-)

    contrib/  large packages contributed to Berkeley by outside parties

Even if you s/Berkeley/NetBSD/, how does it make sense to put ported
software from a given third party under /usr/contrib, especially given
that it probably wasn't contributed?  Is /usr/contrib being suggested
simply because it's the best fit in hier(7), even if it gives an
inaccurate impression?  (This is a philosophical question, and I will not
argue the point to death; I just hope it's not ignored.)

In any event, I would have to agree with the folk who think /usr/local is
a bad place to put things.  I'd much rather see a /usr/pkg or /usr/opt,
which among other things gives the admin the flexibility to install common
packages on an NFS server, without stomping on /usr/local in the process.
One could always put symlinks under /usr/local to point to the packages
that lived elsewhere...

--scott