Laurent Bercot <ska-devel@???> writes:
> On 31/07/2015 11:47, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>>
>> [example of a completely useless daemon process]
>>
>> But that's not a good reason for it being installed and running: A
>> daemon process should only exist because it provides some important
>> functionality with a real benefit for users of the system which cannot
>> (reasonably) be provided in some other way
>
> Nobody contradicts that, and in particular I don't see how this
> disagrees with my point. It's the job of the distribution to make sure
> only useful daemons are started.
>
> Giving the user the ability to gain privileges without opening a
> security hole fits my definition of "useful".

There were two points I was trying to make:

    1) Users shouldn't be forced to research the origin and purpose
       of strange processes suddenly appearing on some system,
       followed by doing whatever is necessary to get rid of them in
       case they consider them useless for them. Eg, I meanwhile
       have an apt.conf file stating

           APT {
                   Install-Recommends "false";
           };

           because I grew tired of keeping to deinstall the avahi "LAN
           party" daemon whenever I was installing one of the bazillions
           of packages whose maintainers 'recommended' it to my
           attention. If I need this, I'll install it, and for as long
           as I don't, I don't want it to be running, documentation and
           frugal use of resources notwithstanding.

    2) Something which can be implemented without a continuously
       running process should be implemented in this way.