Base Directory Spec Intended Purpose

[Jonathan Blandford]

Michael Terry <mterry at fastmail.fm> writes:

> Greetings, list.
> 
> I have a question about the purpose of the base directory
> specification. Is it reserved for the use of other XDG specs, or is it
> something that XDG is encouraging independent developers to use as
> well?  That is, is it intended as a general solution to the 'problem'
> of many hidden directories in a user's home directory?

It is not really intended as a solution to the 'problem' of too many
hidden directories -- that's just a side effect.  It's really meant to
let libraries like those used by Gnome and KDE be able to find their
shared data in a predictable fashion.  It's common to compile either
into /opt/ or /usr/local, and when that happens they don't find data
put elsewhere.

Thanks,
-Jonathan