A smart dude I know put together a nice recommendation FHS. It included not storing system data in /etc. I think we should probably not have /etc/udev/hwdb.bin.
Was just pointed to http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2013-June/011354.html
It needs to be available during early-boot, just like /etc/ld.so.cache, It cannot be in /var, because /var might be mounted only later. The database consists of data from /etc and /usr/lib, so it cannot be stored in /usr, because we need to be able to share /usr independent of /etc. We have no better place to store it.
So, it is a database cache. Is the plan to store others like that in /etc too? This seems like a bad precedent and may not help us define new rules for what can go into /etc. Also, currently this file is "owned" by the systemd package on Fedora which just seems wrong, no?
It is a database, yes. Not a cache. Early boot things like systemd/udev needs to live in /etc, we have no better place for it. This rule applies only to things like systemd/udev which bring up the system and can't rely on /var being available, nothing else should use /etc that way. It's systemd's database, so it should be owned by systemd. If you want to change it introduce a top-level /data directory or whatever it would be named, I personally don't thinkit's worth the trouble, will not fight for it, but would change systemd to use it if it would appear.
/lib/syscache
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