device-automounter moved to kdereview

[Dawit A.]

On Monday 17 August 2009 04:52:13 Sven Burmeister wrote:
> Am Montag, 17. August 2009 08:09:11 schrieb Kevin Ottens:
> > On Sunday 16 August 2009 23:04:01 Sven Burmeister wrote:
> > > > 2) AutomountEnabled should have false by default. So that means that
> > > > (with the previous change) automounting is completely shutdown by
> > > > default. We can't really afford having something doing automounting
> > > > enabled by default for the reasons I pointed out above (multi-user
> > > > envs, formatting, etc.)
> > >
> > > I disagree at least in parts because I claim that newbies and "normal"
> > > users, i.e. those with less knowledge should be the ones defaults aim
> > > at.
> >
> > Except that the use case for that are people with knowledge about what
> > mount/unmount is and want to access their device *now* from the console
> > without mounting first. Those obviously have enough knowledge to turn on
> > the automount and I don't plan to optimize for them (I'm one of those
> > BTW).
> >
> > For all the other users out there, the "mount on demand" as it is
> > implemented right now is enough. Anywhere you could access a device from
> > the UI we mount as soon as the user tries to make a first access attempt.
> > It's not like they need to know what mounting is...
>
> Are you sure? Did you search mailinglists or bugzilla for bugs/comments
> that want automounting and wonder were it is gone or why Windows has it
> etc.? There is for example https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=175611 or
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164053 or
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=434114. Have a look at the
> number of users in CC, are they all experts and want automounting because
> of that or are they rather normal users?
>
> Automounting is not for people that know how to mount or what it is, its
> for easy access to your devices without knowing how to mount it or the need
> to wonder why Openoffice fails to save a document although the stick it
> should be put on is already attached etc.
>
> Sven

I do not have a point of view one way or another on this issue, but it strikes 
me that this particular conversation, whether or not automounting should be 
enabled by default or not, is a moot point, no ? KDE does not make a 
distribution while most users get it through one of the many distributions. As 
such, these distributions alone control what should and should not be the 
default based on what constitutes a typical user for them. So the default IMO 
should be based upon on something else such as the safest thing to do or what 
fits properly with the goal of KDE.