> many individuals can write software by themselves. Few can overturn governments and/or start their own countries.

How many write operating systems by themselves? You're just parroting the number one fallacy of the Internet: "If you can't do better, you're not allowed to critize!" Do you never complain about food if you can't make something better? Do you never critize art, music or architecture?

> the original post contains many complaints that suggest the writer does not understand the mechanisms involved

Look, I am trying to tell you: Both him and me do understand. We just do not agree. Try to accept that there is a difference. If you would read >>1 again:

> Yes, we’ve all heard the reasons why there’s a /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, and /usr/local/*/bin, or why there are multiple library locations, or why there’s a /usr and /usr/local, etc. So what?

And again: "Yes, we’ve all heard the reasons..." - why then are you repeating them, as if being told them one more time would suddenly make them valid?

For instance: The reason you give for the split between /bin/ and /usr/bin/ is completely invalid on just about every modern Unix system. Modern Unixes, especially those running as a home desktop, are never booted into single-user mode, and if they are, /usr/ is pretty much always available. There is no longer any need for this, yet it is still vehemently defended as a good design decision. That is the attitude we're annoyed by.