Enabling ServerAliveInterval by default

[Ben Lindstrom]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Peter Stuge wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 12:24:43PM +1100, Philip wrote:

[..]
>> - "face" issues - senior admins often don't take kindly to some
>> foreigner telling them how to do their jobs
>
> One can ask in many ways. The admin is supposedly there to support
> users, and thus it should be possible for users to formally, or even
> informally, submit a change request so that they can do their job
> better. If that's not the case, I would argue that this is a
> political issue. See above.
>

As an admin I have to interject that a lot of people tell us "how to do 
our jobs" and quite often they forget that we are not just responsible to 
make their stuff work, but balance the needs of everyone.

And that is why we tend to get miffed at outsiders telling us how to do 
our jobs. =)

So forgive us if we tend to disregard "drive-by" admining from the general 
population in a lot of cases.

[..]

>> I agree, we should try to get everyone to do The Right Thing, but
>> sometimes it just isn't going to happen. Sensible defaults are
>> useful in such cases (defining "sensible" is going to be the
>> problem here, I suspect).
>
> Certainly if a single set of defaults must be "sensible" for all
> possible combinations of {language,political,competence} issues.
>
>

Thus is the reason why one hires folks to manage servers.  So that they 
can decide what makes sense for the majority of their users.

My last comment for people asking for it to be enabled by default is to 
start thinking of the traffic in terms of a medium to large company (300 - 
3000 employees) and the additional bandwith consumed on a daily basis 
by this feature when it isn't required.

Colour me silly, but such options really should be deployed as a scalpel, 
and not as a blunt hammer.

Granted, I speak for only myself and frankly I'm no one important in the 
grand scheme of things.

- Ben