Re: ISC's EoL dhcp suite, including dhcpd

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>> I think we should just drop isc-dhcpd from the base system and let
>>> users install a DHCP server package if they want.
>> I disagree, particularly about that one - a site needs one of two
>> things to be able to "install a DHCP server package if they want".
>> They either need to have a DHCP server already [] or they need
>> someone knowledgeable enough about network setup to configure
>> everything manually.   That second one is becoming rarer.

Becoming rarer among what population?

Among "all persons on the planet"?  Not, I would guess; if anything, I
would say it's becoming commoner.

But you probably mean something more like "among all persons using
computers".  Yes, that it probably is.  But "among all persons with any
use for running their own DHCP server"?  I'm far from convinced.

At risk of sounding elitist, I'd even say it's a _good_ thing to
require at least a tiny dash of network knowledge of those
contemplating running their own DHCP server.  I have trouble imagining
how you could configure a DHCP server usefully (much less usefully and
safely) without knowing enough to configure a host manually.

Or, to put it another way,

> [...]  "What does your network configuration look like?"  "My what?"

"What makes you think you want a DHCP server if you don't know even
that much networking?"

> I don't want to go the route of many linux distributions, where they
> assume that the only thing the user really needs is a browser, and
> just maybe, some kind of file manager, and just about everything else
> can be shoved off to some external backage, that when a user used to
> some command tries to run it, just gets told they need to add package
> pqr first.  And that is for servers as well as more trivial
> applications.

Heh, tell me about it.  See the 2016-06-21 and 2022-11-12 posts on my
blah (http://ftp.rodents-montreal.org/mouse/blah/ is the main page)
for a couple of run-ins I had with recent (at the times) Linuces and,
among other things, what they didn't provide.

>> (not to mention, much easier to keep up to date).
> Why?  The fetish for "keeping stuff up to date" I have never
> understood

My best guess is twofold.  Besides what you mention (which I suspect is
less common than it might be; I suspect most such things get their ads
from the net at runtime)...well, for paid software, I suspect it's an
excuse to let companies get away with releasing pre-alpha-quality code,
just figuring they'll update once things get fixed.  For noncommercial
software, well, as a noncommercial software developer myself, I tend to
cut them a bit more slack, but, even there, there seems to be too
little pride in workmanship.  See the Jargon File entry for "Berkeley
quality software"; I've been guilty of too much of it, which is one
reason I don't advertise most of my stuff.

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