seebs@plethora.net wrote:

> In message <87wvyurpf4.fsf@jekyll.piermont.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes:
> >It does make sense, in a historical way...
> 
> I'm not able to figure out why.  Historical, maybe, but what does "etc"
> have to do with "distribution"?  I'd expect it to be something like
> /usr/src/distrib.

At a guess, it probably started out as the moral equivalent of a
"make install" for /etc, and it just grew and grew...

It probably makes sense for /usr/src/Makefile's "make snapshot" to:

	make build			# build 'most everything
	cd etc && make distribution	# install /etc and /var bits
	cd distrib && make snapshot	# piece it all together

Are you volunteering?  :-)

Simon.