Hi Sean, On Thu, 2024-11-14 at 10:16 +0800, Sean Whitton wrote: > I struggle to see why logging is special, in this case. > > Why isn't an MTA a system facility? Well, because many many systems > don't need an MTA at all. > > And similarly, others might not want a standard logging facility, > because they do something else to record their work, or specifically > don't want to (some simple appliance).
That would be an argument to *NOT* have random packages "Recommend: system-log-daemon" so it is easier to not have it installed at all. We spent quite some time to have packages *NOT* "Recommend: mta" so it doesn't get installed by default. (Though I think there are still left- overs outside the default install...) Having "system facilities" that the admins decide to install or not install makes keeping optional stuff optional easier than random "Recommends:" pulling in packages that might or might not be useful for individual installations. As far as I understand there are often concerns that "Recommends:" is sometimes far too inclusive in Debian. On the other hand some people argue that a "proper" UNIX-like system always needs a MTA (and a running syslog and a compiler and so on) because that is what some systems looked like in the past... Ansgar
