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Date:      Thu, 4 Dec 2003 15:13:22 -0800 (PST)
From:      Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org>
To:        sean@mcneil.com
Cc:        gnome@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: xscreensaver
Message-ID:  <20031204145648.W23453@qbhto.arg>
In-Reply-To: <1070576873.3fcfb4e92ccf8@mcneil.com>
References:  <1070573010.28210.1.camel@blue.mcneil.com> <oprzod39gi8ckrg5@smtp.central.cox.net> <1070576873.3fcfb4e92ccf8@mcneil.com>

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On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 sean@mcneil.com wrote:

> This is part of a bigger issue.  It boils down as to whether FreeBSD should
> support LDAP and how.

There is no "FreeBSD" to support ldap. There are only interested users
who are willing to put the work into supporting it (or there are not).

> This is one reason why the base system is moving to
> dynamic libraries vs. static.

ldap specifically isn't, no. Better support for nsswitch in general
(including ldap) is _one_ of the reasons, yes.

> The question is, do we want xscreensaver to work?

It works perfectly for the vast majority of freebsd users, including the
large number of users who use xscreensaver without locking enabled. The
user community who is affected by the --without-pam option is extremely
small.

> PAM is becoming a defacto standard and to not support it seems
> counter-productive.  xscreensaver will check your installation to see
> if you have PAM.  If you do, then it will compile it in.  Unless, of
> course, you disable it.

This statement indicates that you have no actual knowledge of the
situation at hand.

> I would love to hear the reasoning as to why PAM should not be
> supported.  I'm sure you have some misgivings you haven't explained.

A long time ago, the pam support for xscreensaver didn't compile. The
last time I got it to compile, it didn't work. Thus, it's been disabled
ever since. (See above for why this isn't actually a problem except for
a very few people.)

Now, since I don't really use pam for anything if I can help it, and
since I definitely don't have ldap anywhere, I'm not going to be adding
features along this line (even protected by WITH_ knobs, which I agree
is a good idea). However, if you, or your friends, want to try enabling
the support, and then THOROUGHLY test it, in both pam AND non-pam cases,
I'll definitely be interested in your work, and I will probably even
commit it. What I won't do is blindly re-enable an option by default
that I know to have a tremendous downside potential. It's purely a
cost::benefit issue.

Doug



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