The strangeness called `sbin'

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Ed Schouten <ed at 80386.nl> wrote:

> I think John Doe would agree a compiler suite is something more
> `administrative' than an application to send emails, yet they are
> placed in bin and sbin respectively.

A compiler is certainly used by ordinary users (e.g. programming
students), not solely by administrators.

While sendmail is involved in sending mail, it is an MTA (not an MUA)
and therefore is not ordinarily run from the command line other than
when debugging.  It's not at all clear to me why sendmail should be
in either /sbin or /bin:  historically it was in /usr/lib, along with
other programs that were expected to be invoked by other programs (or
by rc scripts) and thus should not be in PATH.