Bug#148034: DMUP: Please clarify limitation on news usage
On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 01:58:10PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >>"Tore" == Tore Anderson <tore@linpro.no> writes:
> >>
> >> I take this to mean I should not read news on debian machines.
>
> Tore> Then why is it mentioned in this context? Reading news is not
> Tore> 'net abuse', far from it.
>
> I would hesitate to speculate on the motivation that prodded
> the author to to creat4e the ordering or the juxtaposition of the
> items on the document. However, if they were thinking abuse, they
> were thinking of complaiunts, and flammage on USENET may bring in
> complaints. Ergo, stop people using USENET.
This can apply to just about every other service available on the
internet. I can see no reason to explicit mention news.
> >>>>> If using news is not allowed at all in the first place, then this
> >>>>> would be redundant.
> >>
> >> Hmm. I guess this means that one should not telnet to port
> >> 119, and paste large amounts of text either.
>
> Tore> Don't be silly. That's "using news" as much as anything else.
>
> I would classify the vague objection as silly and potentially
> trying to weasel services from the donor of the bandwidth, but I'm
> trying hard to be convivial.
What I tried to get across is that connecting to *any* port to paste
large amounts of text without any reason, is abuse. This is not
specific to port 119. I'm sorry for being unclear.
However, this is not relevant to my original question. Common sense
tells me that normal use of news is not what you described above.
> Tore> I just don't like agreeing to an ambiguous document.
>
> The document is far from ambiguous. It is even redundant, in
> case the first message failed to make it throug.
I disagree. It is redundant in saying that you shouldn't use Debian
machines to abuse news servers. It is not clear at all as to whether
you can use Debian machines to read news *normally*, from for example
news.gmane.org.
> Sincxe the Debian project uses email as a primary
> communications mechanism, it makes it useful to use email from debian
> machines, since that may well be for proect use. Debian does not use
> NNTP for the project. Donors should not have to provide the service,
> really, since it is unlikely to be used directly for project related
> work. If a donor has objected to providing sysadmin/bandwidth, and
> that is what prompted the DMUP, it is enough.
If I'm not allowed to read news from Debian machines at all, that's
fine.
If I'm not allowed to read news from Debian machines using a news
server run by a sponsor, that's also fine. I agree that the sponsors
shouldn't have to provide a news server for our use. Perfectly OK.
It is the wording of the document I find unclear.
OTOH, the fact that I can't file a bug directly at the DMUP like I
can with the Policy, and that the document isn't signed at all, is
*not* fine.
IMO, the DMUP in it's current form addresses the DD's as lusers
instead of users - I agree fully with Branden on this one. I think
that appointing a team responsible for revising or even rewriting
the DMUP is a good idea. Maybe our DPL would like to comment on
this?
--
Tore Anderson
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