On Aug 23, 2014 6:45 AM, "Elad Alfassa" <elad(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Christoph Wickert <
christoph.wickert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I
don't think we missed that point, in fact it was already addressed
> earlier by Thomas, when he quoted the workstation's mission statement:
> "The system will primarily be aimed at providing a platform for
> development of server side and client applications that is attractive to
> a range of developers - from hobbyists and students to developers
> working in corporate environments."
> So if the goal of the platform is development and our
target audience
> are hobbyists, students, and developers, how can "simple enough for
> non-technical users" be a criteria for inclusion of apps?
We need to eradicate this dangerous notion that a "technical user" or a
"developer" knows everything about the ins and outs of an operation
system
or computer networks.
It leads to bad design.
I'm not sure anyone is saying that, but the idea that a developer doesn't
know what ports are is a bit unlikely, if not impossible. The point, I
think, is that the workstation product has a fundamentally more focused
target than any other of the major platforms. As such, looking to, for
instance, osx, as providing the exact experience we want may not make
sense. Obviously they do some things very well, but checking those boxes
may not be the best use of effort in order to make the Fedora desktop a
better developer environment.
If your OS is good enough for non-technical users to use it without being
intimidated or confused by it, then it will be easy and simple for
developers too.
Yes, but let's not confuse that with, "if it satisfies
the needs of the
"nontechnical" user it'll work well for the developer".
If you design your software thinking your users will know immidiately
how
to operate it and how it works because they are "technical" you will
have
software that is extremely painful to use.
> Another point is that our product definition states we
should support all
these usecases while still being usable for the non-technical users.
Yes, but (sorry for the many buts ;) that is more of a
secondary issue. The
point of all this is to bring in more contributors. IMHO, the most likely
path to that goal is to focus on making Fedora a desktop that is designed
with developers in mind. A mostly usable desktop for all should fall out of
that effort.
>> > If it's really important then we should keep it, but if it just works
>> > out of the box as I've heard (thanks to the firewalld team for working
>> > on this!), then hopefully it can go.
>
>> Accessing the internet does work out of the box, but
FWIW a lot of
>> client and server development will not. Therefor I suggest we keep
>> firewall-config for now and continue to improve it's UI.
> You are wrong, I'm sorry.
> Our default firewall configuration allows any port higher than 1024 (ie.
high ports / non-root ports) to accept incoming connections, as well as
some very specific services such as avahi or samba-client. This means that
the following will work out of the box:
* Network printing
* Avahi zeroconf auto-discovery
* Samba network shares
* Web browsing
* Python / Ruby web stacks which default to using a non-root port when
running as
a non root user, which is the normal way in which Python / Ruby
web developer test their applications.
> * Anything else that listens on a non-root port
> Most developers will not need to touch the firewall
configuration because
everything will just work. And as emphasized before, we are not aiming this
product at linux system developers, we are aiming it at web developers,
android developers, application developers, game developers and such. Non
of these target usecases will ever need to use a port lower than 1024.
> So if most of are target users might not know what a
firewall is or how
to operate one, might not know about protocols, ports, or how computer
networking actually works, and will probably not need to change the default
configuration *ever*, including this tool by default seems silly to me. And
again, people who for some reason don't want the default can install the
tool from GNOME Software easily enough, so there's no real reason why it
should be included by default.
Again, I'd love to see the evidence that "most of our
target users" won't
know about firewalls (you say might, but given that this discussion is
about dropping a part of the current standard install, we probably need
more than fud to go on).
Personally, I've never had to adjust the firewall for (web)development
reasons, but for personal use I most certainly have (and being able to type
in firewall, and having it popup, AND knowing it's the tool that should
work, unlike installing random firewall app X, is a nice feeling).
Best/Liam
On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 6:45 AM, Elad Alfassa <elad(a)fedoraproject.org
wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Christoph Wickert <
> christoph.wickert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't think we missed
that point, in fact it was already addressed
>> earlier by Thomas, when he quoted the workstation's mission statement:
>> "The system will primarily be aimed at providing a platform for
>> development of server side and client applications that is attractive to
>> a range of developers - from hobbyists and students to developers
>> working in corporate environments."
>
>> So if the goal of the platform is development and our
target audience
>> are hobbyists, students, and developers, how can "simple enough for
>> non-technical users" be a criteria for inclusion of apps?
>
>
> We need to eradicate this
dangerous notion that a "technical user" or a
> "developer" knows everything about the ins and outs of an operation system
> or computer networks.
It leads to bad design.
If your OS is good enough for non-technical users to use it without being
>
intimidated or confused by it, then it will be easy and simple for
> developers too. If you design your software thinking your users will know
> immidiately how to operate it and how it works because they are
"technical"
> you will have software that is extremely painful to use.
> Another point is that our product definition states we
should support all
> these usecases while still being usable for the non-technical users.
> > If it's really important then we should keep it,
but if it just works
>> > out of the box as I've heard (thanks to the firewalld team for working
>> > on this!), then hopefully it can go.
>
>> Accessing the internet does work out of the box, but
FWIW a lot of
>> client and server development will not. Therefor I suggest we keep
>> firewall-config for now and continue to improve it's UI.
>
> You are wrong, I'm sorry.
> Our default firewall configuration allows any port higher than 1024 (ie.
> high ports / non-root ports) to accept incoming connections, as well as
> some very specific services such as avahi or samba-client. This means that
> the following will work out of the box:
* Network printing
* Avahi zeroconf auto-discovery
* Samba network shares
* Web browsing
* Python / Ruby web stacks which default to using a non-root port when
>
running as a non root user, which is the normal way in which Python / Ruby
> web developer test their applications.
> * Anything else that listens on a non-root port
> Most developers will not need to touch the firewall
configuration because
> everything will just work. And as emphasized before, we are not aiming this
> product at linux system developers, we are aiming it at web developers,
> android developers, application developers, game developers and such. Non
> of these target usecases will ever need to use a port lower than 1024.
> So if most of are target users might not know what a
firewall is or how to
> operate one, might not know about protocols, ports, or how computer
> networking actually works, and will probably not need to change the default
> configuration *ever*, including this tool by default seems silly to me. And
> again, people who for some reason don't want the default can install the
> tool from GNOME Software easily enough, so there's no real reason why it
> should be included by default.
> --
> -Elad Alfassa.
> --
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