Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

Jerry jerry at seibercom.net
Fri Jul 22 15:05:44 UTC 2011


On Fri, 22 Jul 2011 06:58:26 -0600
Chad Perrin articulated:

> On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 10:56:42AM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> > 
> > Want it like this? :-)   --->    http://xkcd.com/416/
> 
> That's exactly what I don't want.  That is (an exaggeration of) what
> NetworkManager is trying to do and, predictably, it fails sometimes,
> just as MS Windows' automated network configuration stuff fails
> sometimes.  By "fails" I don't mean something like "it won't connect
> if there isn't a network".  I mean that its primary purpose is to try
> to guess what the user wants based on the developers' mental model of
> what users want, then tries to make it happen -- and, too often, the
> developers' mental model of what users want does not match up with
> the reality.  Users, and their circumstances, are not always the same.
> 
> In fact, these damned automated wireless management tools are so
> focused on trying to provide what the developers expect people to do
> that they often interfere with one's ability to tell them "No, I
> don't want you to do that, do something else."  Work-arounds for some
> cases do exist, but they are often ludicrously wrong in principle
> (like blacklisting a particular network) so that they create too much
> fiddly overhead in practice, or inconsistently effective, or
> otherwise problematic.
> 
> Automation is great when it takes a back seat to serving the
> individual's needs/desires, allowing itself to be overridden in
> simple, obvious ways. When it does not, it sucks.  To do the former,
> all the developers of automated network management tools on
> Linux-based systems had to do is ensure there was a manually
> configured, manually operated command line toolset for network
> management and build automation around that. Instead, these idiots
> built automated toolsets from the ground up, then tried to add manual
> override capabilities into these toolsets after the fact as
> exceptions to the rule.  In short, they followed the MS Windows
> approach, and what they ended up with was tools that not only emulate
> the "pick a network, any network" default behavior of MS Windows
> network management, but also emulate its apparently non-deterministic
> behavior, doing different things at different times for the same
> evident inputs, and fighting the user's actual needs and desires at
> times.
> 
> In fact, the NetworkManager set of network management tools has in
> some ways outdone the stupidities of MS Windows network management.
> "Hey, this is stupid, but it's not stupid enough.  We can do
> 'better'."
> 
> This is the kind of crap I do *not* want to see make its way into
> FreeBSD from the Linux world, and it's why I said I'm okay with tools
> like NetworkManager being released under restrictive licensing that
> makes it less likely to be harvested for ideas by OS projects like
> FreeBSD.  The day some asinine automated network selection line of
> crap like NetworkManager makes its way into the FreeBSD base system
> is probably the day I stop using it.

Stop using what, FreeBSD or NetworkManager?

You do realize that no one is forcing you to use any networking tool
in either MS Windows or FreeBSD? By default there is none available in
FBSD, and the Window's applications can either be configured to your
own liking (well maybe not you own specifications since you have not
specified any) or simply deactivated. You could start here:
<http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Enable-or-disable-network-discovery>.

Chad, I have read through several of your posts and agreeing with some.
However, I have come to the conclusion that you seem to exhibit a form
of "Forward Bias" in regards to newer technology. What if, and that is a
big "IF", a suitable tool and I am not specifying "NetworkManager"
either were to be written for or ported to FBSD that would make the
discovery of networks as simple and remove the tedious and often faulty
process of manually configuring a network? If the tool was not on by
default as Microsoft's is, how could that possible offend you?

By the way, both I and I would believe the named developers would be
offended by your "Fallacy of sweeping generalization" you choose to
throw at them. You equate your feelings of hated for automation as
being shared by all users. Obviously that is grossly inaccurate. You are
smarter than that, so why make such a sweeping and inaccurate remark.

Dinosaurs are dead and the world moves forward. To deny others the
availability and use of newer methods simply because they frighten you
is beyond belief.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+fbsd at seibercom.net

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