[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] Trimming down our default kernel configuration

[Bigby James]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 03:05:25PM +0100, Martti Kühne wrote:
> Well, they came in when people argued in favor of them. [0]
> 
> [0] https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2013-November/034385.html

That entire thread regards the userspace packages and the kludge of a policy
that are in the AUR, and about the fact that they weren't even being properly
maintained. It doesn't refer to the in-kernel modules/code.

> 
> If a justifiable amount of effort saves a significant amount of time
> and energy for the few people who use it, I'm in favor of the security
> features being there so I have them at my disposal in case I would
> decide to experiment with them one day too. 

So you think it's justifiable to expect someone you don't know to spend more
time than necessary performing a tedious and monotonous task, because maybe,
someday, it might make your life slightly more convenient? What if that "one
day" is a year from now? Two years? And what if your time spent "experimenting"
leads you to conclude that these things are "factually useless" to you? What
then of the effort the devs put into it? 

As I mentioned above regarding the thread you linked to, the person previously
maintaining the userspace packages couldn't keep them up-to-date. The Arch devs
don't maintain Arch for a living; their lives are no less complicated than the
rest of ours. I'll gladly admit that the reason I'm all for eliminating these
things is because I have no use for them myself, and removing them when I build
my own kernel makes configuration slightly more inconvenient than it would be if
they weren't there in the first place, and since no one seems to really use them
regularly, there's no real sense in keeping them. But ultimately, if more people
did use these things than didn't, and the devs deemed it worth their time to
maintain them, then my own concerns are moot. They keep the OS I love stable and
versatile; if deciding either keeping something I don't care for or eliminating
something I find useful makes it easier for them to handle Arch development and
maintainance, that counts for more than my convenience.
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