Ubuntu is under attack

[Adam Fabian]

Since everybody and their dog has weighed in on this topic, I figure I
might as well, too.

Ubuntu is a leading Linux distribution, and I would very much like to
see LSB compliance.

"Linux for human beings" could mean configuring things so that, by
default, mail into the local spool isn't hidden.  Maybe something in
the toolbar that tells you that you have a message from the system, or
a program.  But it's just assumed that if you're on something
resembling UNIX, port 25 is listening.

Nothing wrong with simplifying and streamlining, and creating
something that's easy-to-use, but an MTA should be listening on the
localhost for the day when the user discovers, unfortunately, that
some program has decided to use it as a (valid) channel of
communication with the user.  Those programs will silently fail and
discard potentially needed information.  You might just as well rip
out /var/log in the name of simplicity; it'll break some programs, but
they'll probably trundle along, a savvy enough user can mkdir
/var/log, chown and chmod, but it's really stupid and silly to break
an invisible convention that isn't complicating an user's life until
they discover it anyway.  The fact is, a great many programs assume
that an MTA and local mail delivery is available, and those programs
are broken by default on Ubuntu.  To even be self-consistent, every
program in the Ubuntu core should be audited to make sure that it
doesn't try to make use of local mail delivery (the packaging system,
which uses email, needs to be modified; cron, certainly.)  And, of
course, forget compatibility with the rest of the Linux world, where
programs will go on thoughtlessly assuming a local mail system is
available.  Of course, that's a silly proposition, but if you start
your arguments with absurd premises, you're likely to draw absurd
conclusions.