FC5T2 ready for even a test release?

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 1/23/06, Richard Hally <rhally at mindspring.com> wrote:
> That's part of my "use case". Call it a corner case if you like but
> remember that there are many others out there. The fact that the
> "everything" selection has been in RedHat at least since 7.0 and that it
> was put in in the first place should lend some credence to it's
> usefulness.

And the fact that the developers who have been maintaining anaconda
for use in rhl and fedora have felt that its a problem to maintain
doesn't lend credence that that its the wrong technical solution?  Or
the fact that other users have filed bugreports asking for this
feature to be removed because of their experience with associated
security risks?
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16008
This is an OLD debate. For every person who has argued for its
existence there have been people who have argued for it to be modified
or removed... from the dawn of time.

Do you have an accurate accounting as to why it was put into place or
are you just making assumptions? I personally like to think of the
everything install option as a failed experiment. And I'm willing to
graciously let the developers admit it was a mistake so they can move
on free of shame and guilt over the entire history of its existance.

I think the developers/release team for all the releases between then
and now are the only ones in a position to be able to really know why
it was available to begin with.   They are also the ones who have been
dealing with bugreports about everything installs where different
people have interpreted what "everything" is suppose to mean..
differently.  And if you look over the changelog for the anaconda
package, you'll see that over time the list of packages excluded in an
everything install has changed. The history of the exclude list inside
anaconda speaks for itself. There is a maintainence cost associated
with keeping the everything install functional.

There is also an associated cost to overall userbase security by
making it one-click simple for every user to install all software they
do not use nor have any intention of using.  I think you'll be very
hardpressed to find an persuasive argument that would overcome the
security arguments mattdm makes in that bugreport. I don't see the
scales of justice swinging to defend desires for convenience for power
users who have other means to accomplish what they want via less
convenient methods  over protection of naive users who innocently
choose the install option without understanding the risks to security
as presented by mattdm.

I've seen this movie, mattdm wins.

-jef
On top of all this I think certain developers who are heavily involved
with the installer have been making noises about removing the
everything feature for a while now.... for over a year.


I will point out that certain maintainers have been telling people in bugreports