An effort to patch upstream apps with the freedesktop.org directory standard XDG

Right now, if you want to backup your home directory, you have to search through all the config directories created by the hundreds of applications and delete their temp files and caches prior to the backup (over 90% of my backup was just cache files once!) Also, the . files clutter up the home directory, and the . should not be used as a directory, but a file modifier. There are also other serious usability problems with the way .config files are spread all around the home directory.

I propose that Ubuntu make a serious effort to work with upstream providers in an effort to get all major ubuntu applications to follow the standard of putting config files/directories in ~/.config and all temp/cache files/directories under ~/.cache. I propose that this be done by setting two goals:

1) First, all desktop applications installed by default should follow the standard placement of their config and temp files. We should modify them in the Ubuntu repository and then work with upstream providers to make it happen at the source.

2) Once all default applications are corrected, we can start working on the rest of the less common applications. Starting with the popular add on software most people use, and then eventually try to convince legacy application providers to use the freedesktop.org standards (for example, BASH).