I whole hartedly agree with your comments, and those of Caleb.
If gentoo were to just blindly follow the FHS, or anyone with anything for that matter, things wouldn't change for the better.
So the model of "follow the FHS and then work to change the FHS itself" wouldn't work just as easily?
Just looking at the other side of this shiny penny everyone likes to play with... no one in the Linux community will ever agree on anything or standardize anything on their own in filesystems.
The promise of the FHS was that large commercial vendors could sell/support their software on "FHS Certified" systems. But that's not happening, they want their products "certified" on specific distros, realizing that they have legal and financial responsibility for problems that arise.
The reason the standard never catches on? I think people just love "being different". You already see it in the replies here. People honestly (but wrongly) believe that where the files are is better in Gentoo than in anything else -- when really, Gentoo's system is no better or worse than any of the other major distros.
But everyone will say *their* system is better. Whatever that system is. Human nature.
I will say this, though -- it's easier to join a clique that ignores the standards, than to work towards a true consensus by following the standard and trying to change it from within.
Very very few people are truly interested in broad standards because most people can't think broadly enough to imagine how useful such standards would be.
People prefer to think they're special, and different... so they move their little kingdoms (files) around on a filesystem, or they stubbornly want them "where they've always been" or -- whatever.
But ultimately it's unimportant unless you look at a much bigger picture.
You can either build for the future -- or add to the confusion today.
That's the choice that's ultimately being made by those engineers unwilling to try to following standards. In any form of engineering.
Ancedotal evidence: Even the automotive industry wouldn't have ever gone to having safety belts without government intervention...
Nate, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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