user private groups and a src group

[birkholz@midnight.com (Matt Birkholz)]

   Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 14:00 PST
   From: vojta@math.berkeley.edu (Paul Vojta)

      Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 20:57 PST
      From: birkholz@midnight.com (Matt Birkholz)
      To: debian-user@pixar.com
      Subject: user private groups and a src group

      uid==gid is a convenience.  It is not needed to implement the proposal.

   Correct.  Having user private groups does not require uid==gid.
   But actually, in what sense is having uid==gid a convenience?  It seems to
   be more of an aesthetic preference.

You say "tomayto"; I say "tomahto".

      Calling it "the uid==gid proposal" is a misnomer.  Please stop it.

   Has the proposal changed since Ian Jackson's message of 8 March?  I remind
   you that he wrote:

       [...]

If you have an archive of the mailing list, could you summarize the (valid)
arguments against the proposal?  Are we clear on the benefits?

I'm not going to defend Ian's argument.  He obviously can't really mean
"impossible to migrate".  As a counter-example, I just did migrate.  It was
tedious on a single machine with a few users and groups.  It would be more
tedious on a larger site.  It would be persistently tedious every time a
package installs itself with inappropriate permissions.  And yes, I can
just go write a @#$&%! script.  Why are you doing this to me?  What's wrong
with making this doubtlessly useful behavior the default?  :-(Never mind.
I learned my lesson last time.)

If it is this hard to get people to just consider the enhancement, I don't
want to think about the can of worms involved in getting consensus on which
groups get access to which directories.

   It seems that he is saying that in order to have uid==gid, we need
   to do this from the beginning instead of switching over later.

If we take it as the default, why wouldn't we want it to be excellent right
from the start?

   [...]
   *--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
   |									|
   *	So we don't need to make it a mandatory part of debian.		*
   |									|
   *--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*

   How 'bout it?

How about what?  You just told me to pack up my useful default and take a
hike.  I'm not even sure why.

Matthew Birkholz
birkholz@midnight.com