[mijoharas]

The ~/.whatevertheyfeellike is an antipattern (that is annoying) but the others are well defined in the xdg_desktop spec[0].

Personally I appreciate knowing where the config/cache for each application is. (Though it does annoy me when programs don't follow this as in your third example)

[0] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-...

[marginalia_nu]

Why does the XDG spec have authority over software?

[tetris11]

It usually doesn't, and it's mostly a good standards recommendation that even the most GPL of GPL codebases doesn't always follow (looking at you, emacs).

[chimprich]

Emacs has respected $XDG_CONFIG_HOME for a while now. There are worse offenders (e.g. not likely to see the end of .mozilla any time soon).

[j16sdiz]

GNU emacs was created at 1984. XDG Base Directory spec was started around 2003..

[Zambyte]

Also Emacs will reapect files being placed in XDG directories, it just doesn't put them there...

[butlerm]

Software specifications are usually adopted by convention and implemented to minimize surprise and make things interoperable. They are not authorities and cannot make anyone do anything. One of the most common software failure modes is to implement a specification too tightly or in a way that nobody wants although the reverse is a problem as well.

[Maken]

They don't. XDG specifications are recommendations. Their only power is that your software will integrate poorly with other software (specially desktop software) if you ignore their guidelines.