WARNING, hard to keep up with the thread...I've only gotten as far as 
the message I'm replying to here :)

>Chuck Yerkes writes:
>>There.  Now who's up for coding the BSD Auth stuff and not
>>writing more mail??
>
>The issue isn't "coding BSD Auth".
>Its what do you put in apps like login, sshd, su etc.
>So that they can use BSD Auth OR PAM, without having to code the logic
>twice in each application for each API.
>
>An early proposal was to do a shim API, but that got shot down but the
>"I only want BSD Auth" gallery.
>Another option was do BSD Auth via PAM - also shot down by the
>"I only want BSD Auth" gallery. 
>Another alternative may be to implement BSD Auth and PAM via nsswitch
>but I gather the "I only want BSD Auth" gallery won't like that either
>because they don't like nsswitch...
>
>The only proposal that has been offered by the "I only want BSD Auth"
>gallery is "just do BSD Auth and I'll be happy", but of course that doesn't
>meet the needs of the project or anyone else.
>
>Note that all of the solutions that are likely to be acceptible to
>"the project" will involve considerably more effort that the
>"I only want BSD Auth" gallery seem to think, since the project developers
>have made it clear that just BSD Auth isn't enough.

Simon,
Hmm, I'm quite curious by your comments here. This post of yours 
sounds like it came from Greg A. Woods. You said very little in the 
way of content (and most of the content you DID have wasn't even 
true), but still littered it with derogatory comments. I have only 
seen one person who could be considered to fall into the "I only want 
BSD Auth" gallery. That's Greg...and we all know how pig-headed he 
can be anyway :) (incidentally Greg, you're a very smart guy who 
knows a heckuva lot more than me...if you'd change the tone of your 
posts a bit BSD Auth and a few other things you've posted on probably 
would already be in the distribution). Peter has not raised one point 
saying that he wants to keep PAM from being in the system. He's been 
all for the eventual inclusion of PAM. But he DOES want BSD Auth, and 
he seems to think that it can reasonably be coded (mostly by 
him...rather, ported not coded) within a few days' time. All of the 
"I only want PAM" gallery are trying their best to not ALLOW him to 
add BSD Auth at all, even though that addition will do *nothing* to 
stop PAM from being added by someone...and incidentally, noone has 
stepped forward to say they'll work on PAM...you can want it all you 
want, but it won't get here without a developer being willing to put 
up or shut up. Peter's already putting up for BSD Auth.

My biggest question is...what's the problem with allowing BSD Auth?

Mike
-- 
Bikers don't *DO* taglines.