categories of files (was Re: Software installation opinions needed)

[Guy Middleton]

In article <26645 at mimsy.umd.edu> chris at mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:
> In article <1990Sep19.144819.12179 at dg-rtp.dg.com> hackwort at dg-rtp.dg.com (Brian Hackworth) writes:
> >We can divide third party packages into two parts:
> >the part which is the same for all hosts, and is therefore
> >shared (an example is the /usr/bin/cat executable); and 
> >the part which is unique to each host (an example is /etc/passwd).
> 
> I would break this even further: the part that is the same for all
> hosts *regardless of architecture*; the part that is the same for
> all hosts of the same architecture; and the part that is always unique.

We have a very grandiose software installation doctrine here, and tend to
subdivide yet further, into these categories:

	same for all hosts
	same for hosts of the same architecture
	same for hosts that share a community of users (an NFS server plus its
		clients, for example)
	same for hosts within an administration
	unique to a host
	spool files (in theory, spool files could be any of the last three
		types, but in practice here are merely a subset of the files
		unique to a host)

Whenever we encounter an obstacle in the organization, we invent a new file
type :-(.