I meant from the perspective of the program. You can't assume /tmp to be stable, but when the user tells you it's fine, then it is fine. > A permanent archive

I meant from the perspective of the program. You can't assume /tmp to be stable, but when the user tells you it's fine, then it is fine. > A permanent archive of the past states of the tmp directory is not temporary. From the perspective of a program it's still volatile, since the files don't stay in their original place.