Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > But I should be able to use the same laptop to (1) control my machine > tools or talk to my rpi or whatever (2) go online with a usb mobile > modem when I'm out of the house. Possibly even simultaneously.
That requires fixing the package instead of just getting it out of the way, a significantly harder thing to manage. I'm not saying your wrong. The simpler fix would make things better for some people (those who use no USB modems, but do use other USB serial devices), worse for others (those who use USB modems but not other USB serial devices), and the same for a few (those who use both). The question is whether the simpler fix would be a net positive for Debian users, or a net negative. Obviously, a "real" fix that asked the user whether a particular device was actually a modem would be best for the third class of people. Of course, the simpler fix has the side effect of not installing software or running I don't ever need and which serves only to annoy me. So, for me, the simpler fix is even better... > And, people shouldn't have to install support software to get their > internet to work. It's all a question of what support we install by default; there are certainly plenty of network configurations which are not supported in a default install. Are modems still common enough that supporting them by default is worth the cost of wasting space and power on the remaining machines which will never use one? If it were just software that got installed and sat idle, I'd complain a lot less. As it is, modemmanager does "stuff" by default, even if I haven't asked it to. Software which runs on every machine by default should be held to a higher standard than software which users explicitly request. So, if we didn't install it by default, I'd be happy for it to continue to suck. -- -keith
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