RFC: MacPorts Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

[js]

>  The hier part of the guide is meant to provide the source for the
>  porthier.7 man page.  It doesn't right now, but we are intending to base
>  all manpages on the guide very shortly, so changing the guide is how to
>  get the man pages changed.  Right now the guide has the most up-to-date
>  information because of this pending new way.

It would be nice.

>  I'm not really qualified to comment on the technical merits of your
>  proposal.  But I'd be happy to look over what you've written for style and
>  format if it passes approval by our base developers.

The main advantage I hope this guideline would bring to MacPorts is
consistency. No one wants to be in an inconsistent filesystem.
Unfortunately MacPorts filesystem is not so good at this point.

Let's say I just installed mysql5 and apache2.

Where's the configuration files?
for mysq5, It's located in ${prefix}/etc/mysql5 by default.
for apache2 ${prefix}/apache2/conf/ by default.

Where's the log files?
mysql5 uses /opt/local/var/db/mysql5
apache2 uses /opt/local/apache2/logs/

Who can say MacPorts' filesystem is consistent?
If MacPorts had a strict hier guideline and the project recommended
port developer to
follow that guide, every conf would be in ${prefix}/etc/${name}/,
logs in ${prefix}/var/logs/${name}.
It's so clear and easy to remember where to look at when I need it.

I believe this would improve MacPorts's usability so much.