Bug#54524: http_proxy and web clients.

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Greg" == Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> writes:

    Greg> Having options that are only available from environment
    Greg> variables and not from configuration files is a bad
    Greg> idea. It's a lesson that has been learned many times in the
    Greg> past and it's why that rule in policy is there. If we're
    Greg> going to put this in policy we should do it right.

How about this then?

All programs must read proxy information from /etc/proxy (whatever
format you want to make this, it could even be a base-like syntax for
setting the http_* environment variables).

However, if the defacto standard user environment variables
have been configured, then these must be used instead.

The only downside to this is that it is going increase complexity.
However, I think a library could be implemented that hides this
complexity, eg much like liblockfile.

However, I think this would satisfy the concerns I can see from both
sides of the fence. ie it allows the system administrator to set up
site wide defaults, while allowing users to override this if desired.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>