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Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 09:56:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Roger Marquis <marquis@roble.com>
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Subject: Re: CFT: new BSD-licensed sort available
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>> Why to symlink, this is 1/ because it concerns user/admin
>> configuration,
>
> I get that, but why is a conf file not the right answer? We could even
> put the conf file in /etc if we decide that this is a feature that
> should be in the base. Having 2 symlinks just seems like overkill.

IMO nether symlinks nor conf file-base indirection are appropriate for
FreeBSD sort.  It might be cool to program such an app, as it was to
write /etc/mailer.conf, but many of us do not want to maintain another
layer of abstraction.  If you want to do this at least put it in ports
and give the installer an to either OVERWRITE_BASE or install to
/usr/local/bin.  I value KISS an the advantage BSD distributions have
over most Linux distributions in this regard.

Different paths to different applications are the most maintainable
solution to non-backwards compatible updates using the same file name.
Better yet, make them fully backwards compatible and update the
distribution.

Roger Marquis