@khem wrote the following for our upcoming newsletter:
Ever wonder why
/bin,/sbin,/usr/bin, and/usr/sbinexist? The structure is based on traditional UNIX systems; however, it has had evolution of its own. The/usrmerge has been implemented in various Linux distributions. Archlinux and Fedora have switched to using usrmerge heirarchy some time ago. Rob’s post on busybox mailing list elucidates the history behind it. We are also exploring switching the Yoe Distro to use merged /usr file heirarchy for future releases.
Rob’s writeup is interesting.