Usage of apturl in the documentation

[Matthew East]

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 10:15 PM, Dougie Richardson
<ddrichardson at btinternet.com> wrote:
> 1. For many users two the extremely unfamiliar user the command line is a bit of a no go.

The popularity of ubuntuguide has shown us that beginner users are
totally happy to paste in commands to the command line.

> 2. For users comfortable enough to have used it, the word openallports doesn't sound right.

Yes, I chose that word to make a point. The reality is that a huge
number of package names don't describe what the program does. To me,
the word "compiz" sounds pretty weird, but if someone tells me it will
make my desktop look pretty, I'll install it.

> Well, really I'm making two points - this could be abused but from controlled sources such as the system docs and h.u.c. then that's fine but from the ever expanding un-monitored community documentation this is a risk.

As others on the thread have pointed out, apt-url can be used on any
website out there where it's possible to create a apt: hyperlink (i.e.
most of them). Any unofficial Ubuntu documentation site can take
advantage of it. The only place where it can't be used is the primary
Ubuntu documentation website...

If your concern is valid, then the solution is to remove apturl from
Ubuntu completely. But having discussed the issue with Michael and
reading the other comments on this thread, I'm happy to trust the
development team to have made a conscious and careful choice to
include this technology.

> God help us if it was in the forums

In a quick test, it works fine for me on the forums - the forums don't
prevent people from inserting apt: hyperlinks as far as I can see.

>> Why? The Ubuntu development team has a specific security team who
>> looks at these issues, and as a team is stock full of Linux technical
>> experts. The documentation team (by its very nature) simply doesn't:
>> it has writers. That's not a disservice at all, it's just a fact.
>
> Why - because it promotes the notion that there is a hierarchy and that certain contributions are more valuable than others.

No, not at all. It promotes the notion that different groups in our
community have different skills and are more suited to different
tasks. That's true of documentation, development, artwork, marketing,
and so on. All those contributions are valuable, and all of them are
different. Deferring to the development team on a technical issue is
nothing to do with making some contributions more valuable than
others, it's just good sense.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF