Subject: Re: /usr/pkg/etc/rc.d/*
To: NetBSD-current Discussion List <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Jaka Jejcic <keks@kibla.org>
List: current-users
Date: 03/18/2003 21:52:40
> Maybe not to you the narrow-minded sys-admin....  :-)

First of all I think we should keep it without offending each other.


> However history clearly shows that it is seen to be irrational to many
> kinds of users and particularly to developers doing system integration.
> This is not my opinion -- it's a well and widely documented fact and
> it's been an issue ever since there was more than one "competing" unix
> distribution.

I agree that it is easier from user's point of view to stuck everything
together and make a single place for all configuration files and similary
for the binaries. But it is bad practice for sys-admins who want their
sistem as clean as possible. We trust distribution and have no 
particular reason to trust anything else. If nothing more, stability and
robustness of the system must never be questioned --- so separate to
differenciate. Even more important is the fact that with growing complexity
of one's system and the ambition to upgrade easily, the upgradeable part
of the system must be clearly separated. It is again good practice to
have distribution part (which is equal on all NetBSD-s), pkg part (parts of
which can be included or not, but ones included are the same over all
NetBSD-s) and local part (which is totaly site dependant)


> Even the artificially driven separation of /bin and /usr/bin has caused
> enormous controversy over the years.  If ken & dmr had larger disks back
> in the early days, or had been forced to deal with only one disk pack,
> then that separation would likely never have occurred in the first place.

That may be true and perhaps is stupit. But the fear that userland utilities
won't be compatible or will have "too local" (#! tags) flavor is needless and
two clean solutions exist. First is the autoconfig system which enables (and
should obligate) programs to find their way out of "confusing" directory
scheme. The other is to set a "user interface" unix style. We already
have in unix tradition binaries separated from documents and that from
libraries and so on. So why not have a directory of links to binaries for
compatibility. The actual binaries can be save in their appropriate dirs,
while users don't worry about them and use links.

jj