/usr/opt instead of /opt?

[Oron Peled]

On Friday, 9 בMarch 2012 15:41:14 Omer Zak wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 10:31 +0200, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
> 
> > Note that /opt is intended for software (and data) that is not a part
> > of the system/distro, is installed in a non-standard way, etc. This is
> > something you may want to keep intact, e.g., when you upgrade the base
> > system.
> 
> What, then, is the difference between /opt and /usr/local?

Under /opt, each application has its own private "namespace", i.e:
 /opt/foobar/bin, /opt/foobar/sbin, /opt/foobar/lib, etc.

The /usr/local namespace is common to eventhing installed there.

Originally (mid 80's), /usr/local was used for everyhing which wasn't vendor
supplied. However, this had two problems:
 * No distinction between locally developed apps/scripts and 3'rd parties.
 * Major application had a lot of components and it wasn't a good idea
   to mix them with each other (e.g: have /usr/local/bin contain binaries
   from several major applications)

So under SVR4 /opt was invented to solve these two problems.

The importance of these techniques faded when Linux shifted
into a "package" driven world. When we speek of free software
there is no 3'rd parties -- we are all 1'st party.

(OK, so there are proprietary applications for Linux and it's common
 to put them under /opt, and rightfully so because they really behave
 like the bad old 3'rd party software of the 80's... :-)

Bye,

-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron
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