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List:       pam-list
Subject:    Required/Requisite
From:       inX <tmwg () earthlink ! net>
Date:       1997-02-22 20:48:34
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The confusion from the last few days about using required and requisite
points something interesting out. Someone decided that we needed to learn
a new technical language just to deal with authorization. Each of these
words has its own very specific and detailed meaning for PAM, and just for
PAM, that maps vaguely to the English words used for the PAM technical
language.

It may be about time to implement the other specs for pam.d/*. At least
it's in a language we already know: boolean algebra. It might cut down on
the misunderstanding about the specific effect of a particular word in the
configuration files. It seems strange to me that administrators should be
asked to learn a new language to control authorization on their systems.
It sounds like one of those decisions that, on retrospect, was not the
best possible choice.

I know that the maintainers of Linux-PAM didn't make these decisions. I
just wonder if they want to deal with the endless questions that those
decisions are generating.


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