Filesystem change notifications

[Ian Pilcher]

Keith Matthews wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 18:53:42 -0600
> "Ian Pilcher"  wrote:
>
> >My thought is to use SGI FAM (http://oss.sgi.com/projects/fam/), which
> >is shipped with Red Hat and (according to bug #588) Mandrake.  I'm not
> >sure about any other distributions, but the FAQ on the web page states
> >that Enlightenment, GNOME, and KDE all use it, so it should be pretty
> >widespread.
> >
>
>
> It sems to have been dropped in RH 7.3 which is a good thing.


I just checked my 7.3 filesystem.  It's there, and it's definitely
shipped with 8.0.

>
> Fam requires portmapper. If not set up properly (i.e. by someone who
> understands what they are letting loose) portmapper can be a serious
> security problem. The security community regard the introduction of fam
> a serious backward step on RH's part.
>
> KDE etc might use it but they do not _need_ it.
>
> You are also assuming that every distro follows RH's lead which is very
> definitely not true. Many people are already getting upset about the
> number of libraries that are required to get some packages to run.
> GNUCash being a prime example of package use gone mad.
>
Can you suggest a superior alternative?

I don't want to get into a flamewar over the merits of your criticisms
(what does Red Hat have to do with the libraries required by GnuCash?),
but doing something -- albeit imperfect -- seems better than doing
nothing.

BTW, I don't plan to introduce a hard dependency, if that's what you're
worried about.

-- 
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Ian Pilcher                                           pilchman at attbi.com
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