On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Michael Richardson wrote:

>   So, I would suggest that we continue to install things in
> /usr/pkg/etc....

`Continue'? We don't do this in most cases.

There are lots of reasons we don't: and none

1. Every program in pkgsrc has at least two `sources', the pkgsrc
tree and the original distribution. Some have three: the NetBSD
tree as well. So if I abandon the sendmail that comes with NetBSD
for the pkgsrc one, suddenly my config file moves.  However, the
old one still sits there in /etc. When months later I go and pull
down the original sendmail distribution because I need a security
fix right away, and compile it, it starts using my old config file
in /etc/sendmail.cf instead of the current one for this system in
/usr/pkg/etc/sendmail.cf. This can be more than an inconvenience;
it can lose mail or open security holes.

2. /usr is a sharable filesystem on machines of the same architecture.
Thus, if you want something from pkgsrc to install a config file
in /usr/pkg/etc, you are breaking that.

Now if a sysadmin really, really wants to `break' the system in
one of these ways (and he may have reasons to), that's fine; he
should be and is able to do that. But we certainly shouldn't ship
stuff like this by default; it should be a decision that has to be
a conscious one on the part of the sysadmin.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   604 801 5335   De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.
The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org