Bug#877024: modemmanager should ask before messing with serial ports

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

Hi.
It looks like there hasn't been much traffic on this issue in the last
couple of weeks.

My analysis is that the key technical point here is whether it's
acceptable to treat unknown devices as possible modems.

It sounds like:

1) We don't have a good white list of modems.

2)  We don't have an adequate blacklist of modems.  Ian argues we never
will have an adequate blacklist of modems.

It sounds like Aleksander is saying that from Modemmanager's standpoint
assuming unknown devices aren't modems would produce an unacceptable
user experience.

Ian is saying that even if we do everything we can to reduce the false
positive rate, treating some non-modems as modems has unacceptable
consequences.

Have I got that right?

In going forward, I think it is important to consider that
Modemmanager's needs and Debian's needs may be different here.
In the case of Modemmanager as an upstream project, it may be desirable
to give the best experience for users who do have modems.
However, for Debian and for the Technical committee, we need to consider
what experience we want to give all our users and as a result value
damage caused by false positives more highly than the upstream project
might.

--Sam