M anage version control with an abstract layer of links or shortcuts.
E conomize disk usage by sharing architecture-independent files for one platform.
This ideology stems from the fact that on most computer systems, software gets installed into a single behemoth directory. And unless there's a little forethought, they become difficult to manage under thousands of users on multiple architectures. Again, Softinst is a religious practice as opposed to a specific piece of software. Rather than clobber or pollute the vanilla OS with your installs, the installs go into separate areas. Borrowing from the GNU methodology, a software install breaks into two primary categories.