http://www.debian.org/intro/organization
Hi Martin
There are some things, sadly, that Debian doesn't do well.
I filed a bug report, and the maintainer closed it, disagreeing with my
assessment of the problem. He courteously suggested I follow up with the
technical committee.
Good idea, I thought, so off to www.debian.org, click on "contact us."
Hmm, nothing there but at the bottom, "We also have a complete list of
different jobs and e-mails to use
<http://www.debian.org/intro/organization> to contact various parts of
the organization." Okay, click on that and there I thought I found the
pot of gold:
# /current/ Martin Michlmayr
# Technical Committee <http://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte> --
<debian-ctte@lists.debian.org <mailto:debian-ctte@lists.debian.org>>
Beauty. Sent mail off to that address and got this reply:
"You are not subscribed to this list, so your submission was rejected.
Please subscribe to the list first and then repost your message."
Oh heck.
Now I'm trying to help Debian in the best way I can. I'm best at finding
bugs. Can't write (or even read much) C or C++, I struggle with anything
more than basic bash script and Perl, and Python I'll take a look at
when I get a round tuit. I was once quite good at PL/1 and could manage
a bit of COBOL if pressed, but those don't seem to be very useful any more.
Since I've recently installed Sarge on several systems, I thought I'd
make a special effort and report all the broken behaviour I see.
Nothing on the above web page says I have to subscribe to a list, or
for that matter how to do it!), and even if it did, it's making life a
little too hard for users.
Here is the text I tried to send to debian-ctte:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not happy with Chris's resolution of this bug report.
I think that nmap and smbclient are unreasonable requirements for
foomatic-gui. If the current implementation of foomatic-gui actually
requires them, I'd like it to be changed to not do so.
As Debian has found recently, keeping the ungodly out is a tough task. I
myself had the good fortune to avoid Slapper by a week - I delayed
installing the fix, but not too long - just by luck.
I have nmap installed on some of my systems - my choice not dictated by
package prerequisites, and I use it quite often to test my own systems.
In the right environment I would also install smbclient.
I can, if I choose, prevent people without root access from installing
and running their own programs, but preventing them from executing
software already in place, especially software in user-accessible
directories such as /usr/bin is not so simple.
If foomatic-gui needs smbclient to configure access to Windows printers,
I have no problem with that. However, if that functionality isn't
required, either because there are no Windows printers, or because there
are but _this_ machine doesn't need access to them, then foomatic-gui
should be able to configure such other printers as there are.
I have not read the source code - I am a user, not a hacker, and I don't
understand why it would require nmap. It also depends on pconf_detect
which appears to do what I thought nmap might be used for.
I hadn't previously noticed netcat, another fine tool well able to be
used to create a nuisance.
Whether or not _I_ can deal with this (I will, by removing
foomatic-gui), in reality many people do say, "How hard is this!?" and
install all these wonderful tools, not bother with patches ("Hey, it
works doesn't it?") or a firewall to control outgoing traffic ("We trust
that box don't wee?"), and those are the people who allow Slapper,
Slammer, Blaster, Sasser, Netsku and others to propogate.
This would seem funny to people who know me (I think some things in
Debian are too hard), but in this case "Let's not make it too easy."
_____________________________________________________
Please help by passing it into the correct hands.
PS If you really don't think you can open this address to everyone, then
how about letting the bug reporting system handle it? I could just as
easily have opened a but report against, say, technical-committe and we
could discuss the matter and maybe find an amicable resolution or at
least a clearer understanding.
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