Re: horse carcas flogging (was: traceroute in /usr/bin, not /usr/sbin)
On Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 04:50:07PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> Steve Greenland wrote:
> > If they have legitimate reasons to be running network diagnostics, then
> > the *are* administrators. They just happen to not be logged into the
> > root account.
>
> A facile argument that has been used far too many times in the past in
> discussing this issue.
Maybe it is also a good argument, that at least hints at substance.
> Consider: I am not an administrator of master.debian.org, nor am I an
> administrator of any networks between my isp's shell server and
> master.debian.org. Being an administrator requires, by definition, the
> ability to administrate; and I lack that ability. I am simply a
> reasonably clued internet user.
Curious that you still don't understand $PATH though.
> However, I have quite a legitimate reason to use tracreoute from my
> isp's shell server when I am unable to connect to master. Why? So I can
> figure out if it is master that is in fact, down, or some problem at
> novare, or with their isp, or with my isp, or with the networks in
> between. So I can in some cases bring these problems to the attention of
> the actual administrators of those networks (or, if I can't do that --
> as is the case with some of the networks inbetween, so I can try
> bouncing my connection to master off of some other site that routes to
> it via other networks).
Joey, please tell me who is doing this to you? Who is forbidding you
from putting /usr/sbin in your $PATH? The black helicopters? What is
happening here?
Once again: (woe who quotes me out of context)
- There is no good reason to have traceroute in /usr/sbin,
but we can't undo history and it works anyway;
- There is even less good reason to change it,
the gain is minimal (already works), not so the breakage;
- There is no reason at all to only change traceroute,
why argue for consistency, but not argue consistently?
There is no design after the fact, just hack and kludge.
People who care about design, play with hurd. You can still stop them
from casting terrible mistakes on generations, because they're not settled
yet in the way traditional unix is. And they figured things all the way,
and got rid of /usr too.
Oh, and then all the mighty Big Policy Stick wielders. I found some interesting
tidbits there:
important
Important programs, including those which one would expect to
find on any Unix-like system. If the expectation is that an
experienced Unix person who found it missing would say `What
on earth is going on, where is foo?', it must be an important
package.[4] Other packages without which the system will not
run well or be usable must also have priority important. This
does not include Emacs, the X Window System, TeX or any other
large applications. The important packages are just a bare
minimum of commonly-expected and necessary tools.
[".. experienced unix person .."; ".. What on earth is going on,
where is foo?'.."]
standard
These packages provide a reasonably small but not too limited
character-mode system. This is what will be installed by
default if the user doesn't select anything else. It doesn't
include many large applications, but it does include Emacs
(this is more of a piece of infrastructure than an application)
and a reasonable subset of TeX and LaTeX.
[tex and latex, but still no traceroute]
optional
(In a sense everything that isn't required is optional, but
that's not what is meant here.) This is all the software that
you might reasonably want to install if you didn't know what
it was and don't have specialized requirements. This is a
much larger system and includes the X Window System, a full
TeX distribution, and many applications. Note that optional
packages should not conflict with each other.
[".. specialized requirements .."]
dpkg -s traceroute | grep ^Prio
Priority: optional
I left all the really good pot shots out, because it would maybe reflect
bad on policy if I made jokes near it and we all know that policy is HOLY.
Holier than thou anyway. ;-)
Cheers,
Joost
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