Re: exploring debian's users and groups

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Pimlott <andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net> writes:

    Andrew> On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 09:37:57AM -0400, Sam Hartman
    Andrew> wrote:
    >> Many of the groups you state as local policy probably want to
    >> be kept around for compatibility with programs people might
    >> compile/install on their own.

    Andrew> Certainly, no users/groups should be unconditionally
    Andrew> removed from existing systems.  The only problem for new
    Andrew> systems would be if common third party software had
    Andrew> hard-coded dependencies on these users/groups.  Does any
    Andrew> software explicitly rely on sync or staff?  If so, does it
    Andrew> use these users/groups in a logical, consistent way that
    Andrew> we could document?

    >> I'd be shocked to find a Unix system without bin or adm users
    >> or without an adm group.

    Andrew> adm seems to have a useful purpose in Debian (even if not
    Andrew> codified in policy) and should IMO stay.  bin seems to
    Andrew> have no useful purpose (nobody identified one).  It hardly
    Andrew> matters if people are shocked to find something useless
    Andrew> missing (unless people have a sentimental attachment to
    Andrew> bin :-) ).

So the way I would expect to be shocked for bin would be that some
make install would blow out because something tried to chown something
to bin and it didn't exist.

I believe the value of having broken locally installed/built software
be able to use bin is worth the password file space.