system autodeath

[seth vidal]

On Thu, 2008-08-21 at 17:54 -0400, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> Seth Vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-08-21 at 10:01 -0500, Jima wrote:
> > > Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> > > > Also, some people I know stick to old versions for (closed source or
> > > > inhouse developed) software that is hard/impossible to port forward, or
> > > > just random inconsistencies between versions (automount troubles between
> > > > CentOS 5, CentOS 4, Fedora 8 and 9 here were a recent example; we are
> > > > working on open source related to the ALMA radioastronomy observatory,
> > > > there they are still running ancient Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions due
> > > > to software written in "C++" as understood by old GCC, newer GCCs just barf
> > > > at the code and rewriting/retesting that huge mess is a titanic job just
> > > > now really underway).
> > > > 
> > > > On philosophical grounds, I'm against forcing people forward, even for
> > > > their own good...  /encouraging/ them forward is a much better idea.
> > > 
> > >   Well, forcing people forward would be making the autodeath package (or 
> > > whatnot) not removable.  Even if it were installed by default (which 
> > > would surprise me, admittedly), one could always remove or disable it.
> > 
> > Let's be very clear, In my original suggestion I said I would NOT
> > recommend installing this package by default.
> > 
> > that's not w/ a capital no. :)
> 
> OK, understood. But it gives out free rope for later hanging... i.e., I go
> ahead and install shiny new Fedora 11 + autodeath (cool new feature, "I'll
> never paint myself into a corner" are famous last words, and all that), and
> forget about it... some 2 years later, the machine has acquired barnacles
> in form of un-forward-portable stuff, Fedora 13 shows up and the system
> kills itself.
> 

What the hell do you mean kills itself?

All it does is disable the default route.

-sv