Ubuntu is under attack

[Tristan Wibberley]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 07:43:26PM -0800, Mike Bird wrote:
> 
>>On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 18:24, Matthew Garrett wrote
     (and appears to have quoted parts of):

>>>2) Many of our users won't have an email address, or indeed any sort of 
>>>internet access
>>
>>Are you arguing that Firefox and Evolution should be removed
>>from the default install?  If not, how is this relevant?
>>
>>Mail can be delivered locally (or to /dev/null for those who
>>prefer that).
> 
> 
> Delivering the mail locally means that lots of people won't read it. So 
> it's necessary to have a mechanism to notify people that doesn't depend 
> on them opening a terminal and typing "mail".

Which is simple and halfway done with programs like biff.

>>>4) It's an extra couple of questions on install that would only benefit 
>>>a tiny number of users

Not necessarily, it could just be an extra admin dialogue after install
for users that want to redirect to do so (the default install of a
bubble notification could have a button to "forward this notification"
which gives a dialogue including "redirect for notifications to this
destination". That would be really nice for users - instead of them
phoning and saying "the message said something about 'failed' ..." they
can just forward the message to you.

> 
>>>As I said, a better approach would be to ensure that notification 
>>>reaches the users it needs to reach independently of email. I think 
>>>that's achievable.
>>
>>How?  Why?
>>
>>When your Uncle's PC has a problem, would you rather get an
>>email in your inbox or would you rather have your Uncle read
>>it to you over the phone from a notification bubble?  I've
>>had far too many of those calls from Windows users - I don't
>>want to start getting them from Ubuntu users too.
> 
> 
> If I'm able to deal with my uncle's technical problems at that sort of 
> level, I'm able to install postfix, configure it as an internet site and 
> get it to email me. It's a tiny amount of work compared to the work 
> involved in actually supporting him. 

I should really be able to give my uncle the disk and say something like
"Install this, and when it asks you where to send important system
notifications, give it my email address," and expect to receive the
messages unless the MTA/network is screwed when it should change the
address to a local notification address (can any popular MTAs do that
other than bouncing?).

> 
>>What does your notification system NOT do that email CAN
>>do - including local and remote routing (or routing to
>>/dev/null) and reliable queuing?
> 
> 
> It ensures that the information is actually provided to the user, which 
> just depending on traditional Unix mail doesn't.
> 
> Just in case you're in any doubt - if important information is being 
> generated by the system, it is not acceptable for that information to be 
> dropped in a file in /var/spool that many users will never interact with 
> in any way. The assumption that people use the command line on a regular 
> basis is no longer true. The "alternative" of sending it to their 
> existing email account is also unworkable, because it means adding 
> difficult* configuration questions to the installer.

Why does email mean "user uses the commandline" or "user manually
configures and uses an email client" or anything like that? The system
should have a biff-like program as the install time default that reads
the notification mails and shows a bubble. "MTA != hard for the user",
just like "udev != hard for the user" and "init != hard for the user".
The install doesn't have to ask anything extra, it can just set up local
delivery and notification but then the user can just go click clickety
click and have the emails sent out (and all you have to do is tell them
the email details). If the UI for redirecting notification installed
postfix for you before reconfiguring it, then sure, don't install
postfix by default, but it sure would be nice for users to be able to
reconfigure without needing a disc or broadband.

Why oh why does postfix have to remain difficult to install and
configure for this purpose, why doesn't it just happen at install time,
all done by low priority debconf questions?

Anybody can install a whole X server on most distributions, postfix
should be a walk in the park by comparison.

-- 
Tristan Wibberley