http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ is meant to provide some of what you want there. Unfortunately, it seems to be abandoned, bu

http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ is meant to provide some of what you want there. Unfortunately, it seems to be abandoned, but it looks like http://xstow.sourceforge.net/ http://xstow.sourceforge.net/ might be picking up the torch.