why no "service" to run /etc/init.d/* scripts?

[Will Trillich <will@serensoft.com>]

other distros have a nice hunk of syntactic sugar (so simple it
could be a shell function -- a separate script file seems like
overkill) called

	service <initscript> <start/stop/restart>

which runs /etc/init.d/* scripts. how come woody doesn't have
such a thing by default? i'm wondering if there's a security
issue that isn't obvious to the neophyte...?

	# bash:
	function service {
		if [ -x /etc/init.d/$1 ]; then
			bash /etc/init.d/$*
		fi
	}

then it'd be cool to add some "programmable completion" to save a
keystroke or two...

would this be a bad idea for a superuser shell function?
i can see that a black hat can issue something like

	service bind \; cat /etc/passwd

but since he's already root, what's the real cost?

-- 
I use Debian/GNU Linux version 3.0;
Linux boss 2.4.18-bf2.4 #1 Son Apr 14 09:53:28 CEST 2002 i586 unknown
 
DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #132 from Jerome Acks Jr <jracksjr@bellatlantic.net>
:
Wondering WHY PACKAGES ARE BEING HELD BACK by apt?
1.Start aptitude.
2.Search for <your package of interest>.
3.Press enter to display package description and dependencies.
4.Scroll to bottom to view available versions.
5.Highlight held-back version and press enter and scroll through
  list to find dependencies that are not being met.
(Repeatedly press "q" to close displayed information
and exit aptitude.)

Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ...