Packages that bundle a bunch of stuff, or otherwise make a mess, should go into /opt. Well-behaved packages that integrate with the system should be fine to install to /usr.
Who gets the final call on that, the developer or the maintainer? I’ve noticed that Landscape goes into /opt, and Canonical is both developer and maintainer there.
Yes, it’s arbitrary.
Packages that bundle a bunch of stuff, or otherwise make a mess, should go into /opt. Well-behaved packages that integrate with the system should be fine to install to /usr.
Who gets the final call on that, the developer or the maintainer? I’ve noticed that Landscape goes into /opt, and Canonical is both developer and maintainer there.
The developer could do one thing, but whoever builds the package could change it, so the packager.
The system admin.
Especially when some dumbass app starts writing log files to /opt.
Sure, but in the case of dpkg?
The packager.