%datadir or %datadir/games for games?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Sat, 2006-03-04 at 10:20 -0800, Wart wrote:
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> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> >>>>See:
> >>>>http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#SPECIFICOPTIONS15
> >>>
> >>>Note:
> >>>/usr/share/games .. Static data files for /usr/games (optional)
> >>>
> >>>=> I read this as /usr/share/games corresponds to packages having been
> >>>installed to /usr/games
> >>>
> >>
> >>Ern, /usr/games isn't mentioned elsewhere in the doc and is very 
> >>deprecated. I believe they forgot to update this part of the doc when 
> >>/usr/games got removed.
> > 
> > Well, I think /usr/games and /usr/share/games essentially are historic
> > artifacts, and an LSB typical compromise to cater those systems who have
> > a tradition in using them.
> 
> That's the impression that I also got from reading the FHS.
> 
> > IIRC, there had been 2 motivations for /usr/games and /usr/share/games:
> > 1. Keeping games out of /usr/bin to keep $PATH clean and lean.
> 
> Which seems rather silly to me since the amount of pollution from games
> binaries is miniscule compared to everything else already in there.
True, but remember, historically, $PATH search had been expensive (and
it actually still is).

It's also one of the reasons why people had kept X11 linked binaries out
of /usr/bin (users not running X can't use and interactive X11 binary)
and why /sbin and /usr/sbin exist (Ordinary users won't ever use /sbin
or /usr/sbin).

Nowadays, filesystems are fast and cached, shells are equipped with PATH
caching, and the convention of composing $PATHs for different
situations/setups as more or less been abandoned ...

Ralf