yum RFE

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 06:39:50PM -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> You want a technical solution to a socio-political problem.
> 
> They historically don't work. For evidence of these see Bruce Schneiers
> website. :)

They work very well providing they exist to persuade people and guide them
not to enforce [1]. It isn't enforcement we need but guidance

There is a very good case for

"Package [foo] from 'unimploded-wombats-repository' wishes to replace glibc
 in your base system. This may lead to future update or incompatibility
 problems. Are you sure Y/N"

There is no case for

"Package [foo] is trying to replace a base package. This is evil and we
 have decreed Axel sucks"; exit 1

Alan


[1] I would suggest reading "The Design of Everyday Things" for a thousand
examples. Or for a simple modern one consider an ATM. When you take money
out it gives you the card back first and waits for you to remove it. This is
a very successful technical solution to a social problem (forgetfulness). It
is not an enforcement system however as you can still leave your card behind
if you wish.

Other mundane technical solutions to social problems include things like
money (complexity and reliability of barter trading).