On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Jason Thorpe wrote:

> 
> On Feb 27, 2006, at 9:36 PM, Charlie ROOT wrote:
> 
> > For example, newer BSDs (and perhaps GNU even more so) seem
> > to regard typing longer paths as enjoyable: /usr/man ->
> > /usr/share/man, /usr/pub/ascii -> /usr/share/misc/ascii...
> 
> You're neglecting to consider the reasons for changes like the 
> ones you cite. The contents of /usr/share are specifically the 
> bits that are sharable between heterogeneous systems.

It contains no hardware-specific data, but I estimate
that a sufficient amount of the contents are sensitive
to software (system and application) differences as to
make the practice of sharing it between even relatively
similar machines impractical for most heterogenous
networks.  Using the man pages as an example, I think
most FreeBSD users reading the ls(1) man page of NetBSD
and trying "ls -lSr" would be rather dissappointed to
find the -S option for ordering by size to be unsupported.   
Perhaps the "ls" executable itself has a greater chance
of being useful, considering the prevalence of x86
hardware and FreeBSD's extensive ABI emulation.

> > Often Linux, which (unlike BSD) has no V7 heritage, sticks
> > more closely to that heritage.
> 
> Depends on which Linux distribution you're using, I guess.

That's true, and increasingly so.

-aw