please deactivate services by default!

[Matthew Woehlke]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Patrice Dumas wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:24:45AM -0500, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>>> ...I still feel that this is a problem. Scenario:
>>>
>>> If we're going to disable important system functionality, it's  
>>
>> It is acritical system functionnality for your use case. But for other
>> use cases it is something annoying, it fills /var/spool with unneeded
>> data, there is a daemon running (only listening on localhost, but
>> still). your use case is not superior to the use case of a user not
>> wanting to have a smtp daemon in the default case.
> 
> So, before taking away standard functionality that is expected on any 
> unix-like system, perhaps you could ask the the user in question if he 
> cares if important system messages are quietly discarded - and if not, 
> where he would like them to be delivered.

Yes. (replying to Patrice) As I've suggested, be damned sure people that 
might be relying on a local MTA either get one, or cannot possibly miss 
the notice that we didn't install one by default. So long as upgrades 
don't silently remove an existing MTA, firstboot, with an appropriate 
balance of gloom-and-doom and reassurance-if-you're-confused wording 
would probably suffice for that.

Besides; Patrice, your argument is that we should remove functionality 
that is critical to some users because no one has bothered to fix the 
/bug/ that by default logwatch sits around filling the spool with large, 
mostly-redundant messages.

-- 
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
-- 
"You know what Microsoft's problem really is? They've lost the ability 
to feel ashamed." -- Pamela Jones (Groklaw)