RFC: -server packages universe demotions and main promotions

[Matt Zimmerman]

I'd like to remind folks participating in this thread of the documentation
at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMainInclusionRequirements in particular the
"Rationale" section:

 * The package is useful for a large part of our user base.

 * The package is a new build dependency or dependency of a package that we
   already support (additionally, the official image builder requires all
   used packages be in main).

 * The package helps meet a specific Blueprint goal.

 * The package replaces another package we currently support and promises
   higher quality and/or better features, so that we can drop the old
   package from the supported set. 

On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 08:54:47PM +0100, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> Mathias Gug <mathiaz at ubuntu.com> writes:
> 
> > The Ubuntu Server team would like to get your feedback on whether the packages
> > listed below should be demoted to universe or promoted to main.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > == Proposed universe demotion ==
> >
> >  # nis
> 
> Especially in university environments, nis is still really used a lot.
> At least at the place I work, all our student and employee user
> databases handled for unix systems are maintained in nis.  True, ldap is
> superiour in many ways, but unless there is a compelling reason for
> demoting it, I'd rather have it in main.

NIS has design flaws which make it difficult or impossible to use securely.
It also seems to be unmaintained upstream (the most recent release was in
2006).

Moving it to universe would not, of course, prevent you or your employer
from making use of it.  In practice, the Ubuntu nis package is more or less
identical to the Debian one anyway (i.e. it does not see much additional
maintenance in Ubuntu).

> >  # radvd
> 
> isn't this necessary for ipv6 routers? is ubuntu going to be unfriendly
> with ipv6?

Placing radvd in a different section of the archive indicates neither
friendliness nor unfriendliness.  It is simply a classification for
maintenance purposes.

If you're in the business of building IPv6 routers using Ubuntu and radvd,
would you be interested in maintaining it in Ubuntu? ;-)

Here again, the package is generally identical to Debian's, so there is no
functional change.

> >  # racoon
> >  # ipsec-tools
> 
> No ipsec support in main at all? Also mandatory for ipv6 AFAIUI.

Doesn't seem to meet the criteria above.

> >  # siege
> >  # minicom:
> >     - cu is tiny and trivial to support, but doesn't support error correction 
> 
> doesn't screen(1) handle this sufficiently?

Interesting, I didn't know screen could do this.  I haven't tried it, but
based on the man page, it would be sufficient for my purposes.

-- 
 - mdz