No one would argue that some of the best software on the planet has come
from free software projects where the author or authors have no higher
purpose than to "do better." Additionally, the bulk of their improvements
have come from finding clever and sometimes even brilliant ways to
incorporate user requests.
But sometimes, the developer ego gets involved and once they make a
decision about the "right way" to do something it becomes cast in concrete.
My case in point today is having installed the latest version of Exim and
finding that the directive placing "root" on the never list - cannot be
overridden.
As a default - that is without question a good idea. But making it a
hard-coded restriction implies that the author knows my system, my office,
my environment, my business and my needs better than I do. In fact, the
very last thing in the world that I need is a programmer trying to save me
from myself.
Even worse, if the mere act of placing a series of ASCII characters in a
file on a disc named /var/mail/root can cause a security breech... redesign
your program or find someone better than you who can do it for you.
In my opinion, there is a special place in hell for programmers that decide
that they know best what other people need and how they should do things.
And finally, for all those of you reading this that are getting a twitch in
your backsides...
having this almost uncontrollable urge to reply...
asking why in the world I'd want to do something that YOU don't want to
do...
telling me why *I* shouldn't do what *I* want because *YOU* think it's
wrong...
telling how YOU do it because YOU found a work around...
attacking me for having the audacity to have formed a different opinion
that you...
... you're as big a part of the problem as anyone else.
