[ On Saturday, July 8, 2000 at 14:16:41 (-0400), Greg Hudson wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: login.conf for selecting password verification method (was Re: Kerberos is on by default?) 
>
> > One can equally aruge that Linux, and even Solaris these days, have
> > source available.  However in at least Linux specialised knowledge
> > is definitely required to (re)build any significant portion of the
> > system from source.
> 
> What does "specialized knowledge" mean?  I suspect more people know
> how to "rpm -i" an SRPM and "rpm -bc" the spec file than know how to
> use the NetBSD build system.

I'm talking about the Linux system itself, not add-on SRPMs.  Ever try
to build a Linux kernel from scratch?  ;-)

> > I know there are some folks, programmers even, who don't even build
> > their own kernels, but that's a conscious choice on their part, not
> > something explicitly encouraged by the OS developers.
> 
> I think you're making this attitude up out of whole cloth, and it's
> disturbing that you attribute it to the OS developers.  Availability
> of source does not excuse lack of runtime extensibility for an
> operating system.

Actually I think it does in the case of authentication and authorisation
services....

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>