Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Reducing the size of the system package set

[Josh Saddler]

Mike Frysinger wrote:
>> Well, openssh has always been questionable.  Sure, *I* think it should
>> be on any Gentoo system I'd want to touch, but it really isn't necessary
>> for a lot of people.  Moving this to, say, the "server" profiles only
>> would be acceptable to me, but then again, so is leaving it how it is
>> now.
>
> i'd argue pretty vehemently against removing openssh from any default official
> Gentoo install.  ssh is defacto standard for loginning into any other
> machines.  it should be on all Gentoo desktops/severs/etc...
> specialized/embedded/whatever are certainly free to cull openssh (and doing
> so is actually beyond trivial).  whether we express this requirement in base/
> or frags or something is certainly open for discussion, but i believe
> removing it from a stage3 in any of our standard releases is a huge
> disservice to everyone.

We all know that ssh is good for sysadmins and netadmins and Gentoo
developers, etc. However, desktop users -- i.e., those not in those
categories, which is most everyone else, likely do not find it as
useful. I'd say that most of our userbase doesn't need to remotely
connect to other machines. Our development/admin experiences are *not*
typical of our installed userbase, judging by our huge forums. Their
machines aren't used for such purposes. openssh may be a de facto
standard for the kind of application it is, but that doesn't mean we
need to force it on end-users. Our philosophy has been more of "opt-in",
rather than "opt-out", and quite simply, ssh isn't a critical system
package; a base installed system won't be broken if it's  not there. If
you *need* it to do work (admins, I'm looking at you), then you can
*emerge* it. Just like vim, cvs, dev_tool_foo etc.

I *am* a desktop user. And . . . aside from Gentoo development, I have
no need for ssh. It could easily be removed from the system profile --
the only place it might be kept is in the liveCD environment, for remote
installations. Other than that, we don't need to ship it in our stages;
just on the media.


(Whoa, sudden feeling of deja vu. I'm 80% positive this was previously
brought up on the MLs within the last two to three years...and I stated
the same view then!)