Unhappy with xdg-user-dirs

[Pat Suwalski]

On 2015-08-03 05:51 PM, "Thomas U. Grüttmüller" wrote:
> 1. I do value the work of <freedesktop.org> very much. If the existance
> of certain directories is necessary for desktop applications to work
> properly, any desktop environment should follow that standard. So, I
> don’t blame the software for existing. On the contrary, it should be
> there by default then.

On a new install, they are there by default.

> 2. My primary issue is that the software should not do unexpected
> things. I didn’t expect that a program would create these folders, and I
> didn’t expect that it would repurpose existing folders. Especially I
> didn’t want it to repurpose my existing folders. So what is the problem
> with informing the user of the changes, and giving him a chance to opt
> out? This is a very disrespectful behaviour!

It's not repurposing any folders. These folders may get used as defaults 
for programs that haven't had any other settings specified, but your 
existing programs would continue doing what you expect.

> 3. My second issue is that I don’t understand the purpose of this
> standard. <freedesktop.org> is about setting standards, how desktop
> environments should work and interact, right? So where is the document
> that explains what these folders are good for? As a user, I want to know
> which kind of data I can expect there. As an application developer, one
> needs to know how the application should deal with these folders correctly.

I can't find a spec per-se, but it all started here:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2007-February/007727.html

--Pat