On 19 Mar 2000, at 13:16, Greg Lehey wrote:

> One of the things that I really think would make sense would be to get
> all the BSDs and a handful of Linuces together at a virtual table and
> agree on userland layout.  It would be of benefit to all.  This is the
> kind of cooperation which does make sense, while maintaining (most of)
> the individuality of each project.

Hi,

that was great but at least as far as it comes to several Linux 
distributions (I do not know too much about the other BSDs) it will 
hardly become reality: the more known distributions differ in their 
"userland" for good reasons (like security issues, ease of use, etc.), 
they worked hard on their concepts and will hardly change them.

Indeed users were better off with some kind of standard layout but, 
as far as it concerns the Linux distributions, that would make them 
become exchangeable and thus they probably lost their market 
shares.

And I guess if one started a discussion about the "ideal" userland 
layout, there were too many different needs and wishes to get a 
solution that satisfied all or even the majority. That many people - 
that many opinions.

As I said, I would prefer a standardised environment, but who asks 
me?

mike