Re: Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and NetBSD

[Jeff Licquia <licquia%linuxfoundation.org@localhost>]

On 05/10/2011 11:58 AM, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> Well, perhaps one can't blame "them" for trying *now*.  But do keep in
> mind that when this "standard" was propagated, decades of precedent
> (Unix has had a hier(7) manual page for that long!) appear to have been
> ignored once again with no solicitation of parties outside Linux for
> comment -- just the usual "Linux does it this way, let's get a standard
> that says everyone should."

Well, I can't speak to past sins.  But *my* motivation is certainly not 
"hey, everyone, endorse every fool thing we've been doing for the past 
decade!"

If the effort for a general UNIX FHS were seen as useful, we'd be happy 
to relegate the Linux-isms to the Linux annex, and endorse BSD-isms in 
*BSD annexes.  (Or one BSD annex?)

> One constructive thing that could be done would be to adjust the language
> of the "standard" to point out that it is informative not normative, that
> its scope is strictly limited to Linux systems, and to direct readers to
> sources like hier(7) which have documented existing Unix practice for much
> longer than the "standard" has existed.

"Informative" vs. "normative" depends on the scope; the Linux world 
actually considers the FHS normative for itself.

"Strictly limited to Linux" is being thrown around; that's what 
motivated my posts here and elsewhere.  It sounds like it may be the 
right course of action.

If we don't have a reference to hier(7), that should probably be a bug 
in the FHS.

> Heaven forfend that this "standard" were to be -- for example -- incorporated
> by reference into some larger standard to which we _did_ want to conform.
> Let's just please avoid that!

If we continue to ride that flight of fancy, which standards might those be?