[fhs-discuss] Merge FHS with BSD filesystem standard?

Martin Baehr mbaehr at email.archlab.tuwien.ac.at
Wed May 18 12:11:08 PDT 2011


On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 09:24:30AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> (This is not theoretical; the use of /usr/lib/<dir> instead of
> /usr/libexec/<dir> in the FHS is a divergence from GNU policy that, as I've
> heard it, was a concession to the BSD folks who were engaged in FHS
> discussions at the time.  No BSD distribution has adopted the FHS since
> then. <shrug>)

that's because they all adopted GNU policy and implemented libexec ;-)

that was meant to be a joke but it turns out to be closer to the truth
than the opposite, and it is more likely that BSD folks left the FHS
because libexec was killed.

looking back through the threads it appears that BSD was always
supporting libexec and it was the linux camp that was more strongly
against it.

libexec was one of the hot topics right when the FHS started (after FSSTND)
it was removed from the draft because there seemed to be a majority
against it. 

there was an attempt to reintroduce it after FHS 2.0 came out in 1998 with the
claim that
> Subject: Let's get back to discussing /usr/libexec
> [ ... ] the `Linux Camp' voted down the original libexec because they
> objected to the raid on /usr/sbin. However, some say it lost only
> because the poll caught the BSD representatives offguard.

but it didn't get much discussion.

after that it was the LSB that pushed for a kill

> Subject: [CLARIFICATION] Close the door for reinventing /usr/libexec as /usr/lib<qual=exec>
> On the LSB meeting Dec. 1999 it was decided unanimously to get rid of /usr/libexec.

another attempt in 2006 from fedora core also only got a few
replies. (but that was at a time when FHS activity started to quiet
down)

greetings, martin.
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