FESCo Meeting Summary for 2008-10-22

[Brian Pepple]

=== Members Present ===
* Brian Pepple          (bpepple)
* Jarod Wilson          (j-rod)
* Bill Nottingham       (notting)
* Jon Stanley           (jds2001)
* Dennis Gilmore        (dgilmore)
* Josh Boyer            (jwb)
* David Woodhouse       (dwmw2)
* Karsten Hopp          (kick_)

=== Absent ===
* Kevin Fenzi           (nirik)

== Summary ==
=== New Sponsor ===
* FESCo has approved the sponsor requests for Andreas Thienemann.
** Note: any Fedora packager that wishes to become a sponsor, can
contact the FESCo chair or go directly to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras/Schedule/NewSponsors

=== Fedora Packaging Committee Guideline Proposals ===
* FESCo had no objections to the guideline proposals approved by the
FPC. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Minutes/20081021

=== Post-Beta Snapshots ===
* FESCo had no objections to the adjustment proposed by the Release
Engineering team.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg01994.html

=== Features ===
* FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
      * For: kick_
      * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
      * Abstain: jwb
     1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity

* The Echo Icon Feature was pulled, after a review by the Art team.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/EchoIconTheme

IRC log can be found at:
http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/fesco/FESCo-2008-10-22.html

Later,
/B
-- 
Brian Pepple <bpepple(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Bpepple
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 810CC15E
BD5E 6F9E 8688 E668 8F5B  CBDE 326A E936 810C C15E

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 23.10.2008 21:53, Brian Pepple wrote:
>  === Features ===
>  * FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
>        * For: kick_
>        * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
>        * Abstain: jwb
>       1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity 
I think FESCo is doing a big mistake here.

So FWIW, I totally agree with what Ville said in
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg02180.html

I'm willing to help Ville and Matthew making a real solution, where sbin 
stays "root commands" only, and where package that are right now get 
into he search path for ordinary users (either with symlinks or by 
moving the binaries). But it's IMHO best for everyone if we do that for 
F11. Come on, we had /sbin not in the path for more then how many years, 
so what is one half year more (especially as everyone that dislikes it 
is used to enable it already)?


But what's even worse: The summary IMHO misses two important details:

>  dwmw2> | If they want to come to us _quickly_ (i.e. next week)
> with a concrete, ready-to-ship alternative, then we can consider it.
>  dgilmore> | if there was a concrete workable alternative then i think we can consider
> it 
Something like that really should have been mentioned in the summary.

CU
knurd

[Jon Masters]

On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 07:11 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  On 23.10.2008 21:53, Brian Pepple wrote:
>  > === Features ===
>  > * FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
>  >       * For: kick_
>  >       * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
>  >       * Abstain: jwb
>  >      1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity
>  
>  I think FESCo is doing a big mistake here.
>  
>  So FWIW, I totally agree with what Ville said in
>  https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg02180.html 
If you're writing scripts and not explicitly calling out the binary
location, then it's not surprising if your scripts break later. I know
it's nice to always assume a particular PATH, but it's not good practice
any more than including or not including sbin in the PATH to begin with.
And people using tab-completion can get used to the new binary names.

FWIW, I think including sbin in the path is only about *10 years too
late*, everyone else is already laughing that Fedora didn't do this, so
really it doesn't need to wait for yet another 1.5 years to get done :)

Jon.

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 02:04 -0400, Jon Masters wrote:
>  On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 07:11 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  > On 23.10.2008 21:53, Brian Pepple wrote:
>  > > === Features ===
>  > > * FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
>  > >       * For: kick_
>  > >       * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
>  > >       * Abstain: jwb
>  > >      1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity
>  > 
>  > I think FESCo is doing a big mistake here. 
+1

>  > So FWIW, I totally agree with what Ville said in
>  > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg02180.html
>  
>  If you're writing scripts and not explicitly calling out the binary
>  location, then it's not surprising if your scripts break later. I know
>  it's nice to always assume a particular PATH, but it's not good practice
>  any more than including or not including sbin in the PATH to begin with.
>  And people using tab-completion can get used to the new binary names.
>  
>  FWIW, I think including sbin in the path is only about *10 years too
>  late*, everyone else is already laughing that Fedora didn't do this, so
>  really it doesn't need to wait for yet another 1.5 years to get done :) 
I
disagree. Fedora not having gone this naive road is one detail why
users are using Fedora.

[Horst H. von Brand]

Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de&gt; wrote:
>  On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 02:04 -0400, Jon Masters wrote:
>  > On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 07:11 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  > > On 23.10.2008 21:53, Brian Pepple wrote:
>  > > > === Features ===
>  > > > * FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
>  > > >       * For: kick_
>  > > >       * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
>  > > >       * Abstain: jwb
>  > > >      1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity
>  > > 
>  > > I think FESCo is doing a big mistake here.
>  +1
>  
>  > > So FWIW, I totally agree with what Ville said in
>  > > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg02180.html
>  > 
>  > If you're writing scripts and not explicitly calling out the binary
>  > location, then it's not surprising if your scripts break later. I know
>  > it's nice to always assume a particular PATH, but it's not good practice
>  > any more than including or not including sbin in the PATH to begin with.
>  > And people using tab-completion can get used to the new binary names.
>  > 
>  > FWIW, I think including sbin in the path is only about *10 years too
>  > late*, everyone else is already laughing that Fedora didn't do this, so
>  > really it doesn't need to wait for yet another 1.5 years to get done :) 
>  I disagree. Fedora not having gone this naive road is one detail why
>  users are using Fedora. 
Heartily agree. I've been using Unixy systems since 1984 or so, and /never/
found a valid reason for {,/usr}/sbin in PATH for "normal users".
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                    Fono: [phone]
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria             [phone]
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile 2340000       Fax:  [phone]

[Conrad Meyer]

On Sunday 26 October 2008 08:16:36 am Horst H. von Brand wrote:
>  Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de&gt; wrote:
>  > I disagree. Fedora not having gone this naive road is one detail why
>  > users are using Fedora.
>
>  Heartily agree. I've been using Unixy systems since 1984 or so, and /never/
>  found a valid reason for {,/usr}/sbin in PATH for "normal users". 
Did "normal users" have personal computers in 1984? Nowadays a lot of people 
own and admin their own computer. Many commands that exist in {,/usr}/sbin 
are useful even to non-root users on a shared system, such as ifconfig.

Regards,
-- 
Conrad Meyer <konrad(a)tylerc.org&gt;

[Chuck Anderson]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 07:11:32AM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  On 23.10.2008 21:53, Brian Pepple wrote:
> > === Features ===
> > * FESCo rejected a proposal to revert the Sbin Sanity(1) feature.
> >       * For: kick_
> >       * Against: dwmw2, j-rod, bpepple, notting, dgilmore, nirik
> >       * Abstain: jwb
> >      1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SbinSanity
>
>  I think FESCo is doing a big mistake here.
>
>  So FWIW, I totally agree with what Ville said in
>  https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-October/msg02180.html 
+1

This is really easy to revert now with little harm.  It will be MUCH 
harder to revert this later to incrementally improve the /sbin 
situation.

[Matthew Miller]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 07:11:32AM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  I'm willing to help Ville and Matthew making a real solution,
> where sbin 
>  stays "root commands" only, and where package that are right now get into 
>  he search path for ordinary users (either with symlinks or by moving the 
>  binaries). But it's IMHO best for everyone if we do that for F11. Come on, 
>  we had /sbin not in the path for more then how many years, so what is one 
>  half year more (especially as everyone that dislikes it is used to enable 
>  it already)? 
I'm pretty much resigned to leaving it as it now stands (sbin in the path)
and proposing "Sbin Sanity, Now With Actual Sanity" for the F11 development
process.


-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
Senior Systems Architect 
Cyberinfrastructure Labs
Computing & Information Technology 
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences