[gentoo-desktop] Openssh really needed in desktop profiles?

[Duncan]

OK, I've not seen this dealt with on any of the Gentoo groups/lists I'm 
in since at least early 2004, there's nothing I can find about it on 
bugs, and for some reason my package.provided entry quit working, 
bringing the question back to the front burner.

Why is openssh (as virtual/ssh) part of the desktop profiles?

Sure, some folks will have more than one machine, or ssh in to work or 
something, but they can emerge it, just like anyone else does.  Those 
with only a single machine, who only access it locally, and who have no 
reason to ssh into any other machines, should have no need of it.

In fact, despite the fact that I've been running Gentoo since early 2004, 
I've /never/ had ssh on the system, AFAIK.  It has always been injected 
or in package.provided, since I never could see a reason to have it on my 
system, and as we all know, an unneeded and unused app on the system is a 
security vulnerability waiting to happen.  Not only that, but on Gentoo, 
there's a significantly higher than normal maintenance burden, give our 
compile from sources general policy.  Since I've not needed it in all 
/that/ time, it should indeed be safe to remove from the system list and 
made a dependency for anything that /does/ need it.

Anyway, I think at least a discussion might be worthwhile, and I decided 
to bring it up here to see what desktop folks thought, before bothering 
the entire dev list with the idea.  If it gets shot down here, then no 
need to bring it up there.  I keep thinking that /someone/ must have 
asked the question before, but I haven't seen it in three years now, so 
it can't be /too/ much of a FAQ.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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