RH and Fedora don't use the same directories as the tarball's and thus you can end up with conflicts if you don't remove traces of the other versions. Configuration files can also be in different directories. [...]
This should be corrected in the future so if there are changes to an application that will benefit a user and there is no official upgrade planned then getting the tarball would be an option. Use the same directories as the tarball/official release.
Red Hat has strived for years to create and follow a standard for file locations, and is I believe also working with the LSB (?) standard for Linux filesystem locations. That standardization is one of the things that has helped it create a logical, consistent OS for most applications... "the good of the many," in fact.
Putting anything wherever it pleases without regard for those nearly 10 years of standardization would be a HUGE loss, all for the (negligible and questionable, IMHO) benefit of letting app developers put files wherever they please. Is that really better than slowly working to standardize all Unices into filesystem locations, so that you can always find all config files in /etc, for example?
I think not.
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
