Andreas Barth wrote:
* Sven Luther (sven.luther@wanadoo.fr) [050605 15:20]:Notice that nobody was taking this seriously, people where only saying, how it is not so important, there is an easy workaround, let's just forget aboutthis.I can assure you, that is not true. We had some discussion within the release team about this bug, we took it very seriously. However, there were only two options: Release this weekend or delay it a further week. We decided that in total releasing now was the better option. Please note that this didn't say it is not a problem. But just that this issuewon't hold up the release.
As I have previously said in this thread; I am sorry for starting this debacle. I am also sorry for forcing upon you a decision that probably was not easy. I want you to know that I am extremely grateful for the incredible work of you and all others in getting sarge ready for release. The upcoming release will be the best ever. Many thanks. And many apologies for taking time from probably already busy schedules. I hope my decision to bring attention to the issue hasn't caused too harsh feelings among the release team.
With "the bug" going into release, my largest fear is that this somehow gets picked up by clueless press and spun into something stupid like "Linux downloaded porn by itself to daycare computer." Sarge deserves a lot better than that. But most likely I am now overdramatizing (i.e. trolling); sorry.
To continue the actual discussion: people are arguing that the configuration steps required to trigger this (chose kde/chose random screensaver) makes the risk for being "exposed" small, "why have nobody reported this before?". Here is "my story" (sorry for the length, but I think the details are relevant):
I work at an academic workplace. I have "some kind of responsibility" over something like ~40 desktop computers of which about 10 are currently running Debian. A majority are still on woody, in a setup I am quite sure is unable to run WebCollage. The rest are all running quite early versions of sarge testing, where it again seems WebCollage are unable to run (probably missing some kind of dependency; but it may be related to our afs/kerberos setup). As far as I know, a majority use kde, despite gnome being the default. (As a gnome user myself I sometimes ask why, and commonly get "it just looks prettier".)
For about 3 weeks ago, one of the Debian machines had an harddrive crash. Upon replacing the disk, I reinstalled the most current version of Debian testing. Now apparently WebCollage was working "out of the box". It took the user of this machine about 3 weeks to "get exposed" to WebCollage, which resulted in me reporting the bug that same day.
Of the perhaps ~60 users I have helped over time, it is my impression that wallpaper and screensaver are among the most common things for "ordinary users" to configure. The random screensaver is a very common choice.
I hope it is obvious why I from this experience have the impression that in an organization deploying Sarge, exposure is not unlikely. However, the above is obviously anecdotal in nature, so perhaps it do not apply to other organizations and is by no means any "proof". I just wanted to present this as food for thought for the discussion.
//Rickard