GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct packages of
software and/or data located in separate directories on the
filesystem, and makes them appear to be installed in the same
place. For example, /usr/local/bin could contain symlinks to files
within /usr/local/stow/emacs/bin, /usr/local/stow/perl/bin etc., and
likewise recursively for any other subdirectories such as .../share,
.../man, and so on.

This is particularly useful for keeping track of system-wide and
per-user installations of software built from source, but can also
facilitate a more controlled approach to management of configuration
files in the user's home directory, especially when coupled with
version control systems.