Fedora (Linux) is Destroying it self

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2009-05-12 at 13:26 +0100, Ilyes Gouta wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Obviously one has to set up $PATH and $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to get programs
> running properly. /usr/bin would be populated with scripts that do
> exactly that so that the change is transparent to the user. But that's
> really the implementation part of the idea, let's stick to the concept
> for the moment.. Isn't having one folder per application a nice
> feature? 

Why?

I think there's an important point missing here: it's perfectly possible
to package two versions of an application within a distribution
packaging repository, in a way that's compliant with the FHS - if that's
what you want to do. You could certainly build firefox2 and firefox3
packages that could be installed together and did not conflict, within
the Fedora repositories, in a way that satisfied all Fedora packaging
guidelines and the FHS. It is not inherently impossible or even
particularly difficult. The reason we don't do this is not "because our
filesystem layout makes it impossible" but "because we have no interest
at all in providing Firefox 2 as a supported piece of software in
Fedora".

> What I'm emphasizing here is separation for more flexibility.

I don't think it's necessary. The difference
between /opt/firefox-2/firefox and /usr/bin/firefox-2 isn't as big as
you seem to think.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net