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Two wrongs don't make a right. Apple still includes uucp for some unknown reason. The saving disk space argument makes no sense because telnet was one of the

Two wrongs don't make a right. Apple still includes uucp for some unknown reason. The saving disk space argument makes no sense because telnet was one of the smaller binaries in /usr/bin. Telnet continues to be widely used for select use cases and being told we're naughty by not including it feels punitive and just adds extra steps. What are you supposed to do, trash a $1m piece of industrial equipment because Apple wants to remind you Telnet is insecure? New devices are still being released with Telnet where SSH is impractical or unnecessary.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
mmh0000 8mo ago
There are many things I want to say in reply to this. So I’ll bullet point them: * yes, do not buy equipment that has acquired so much tech debt that it still requires telnet. * there are a million telnet clients out in the world. And ones far better than the default OS one. Apple not shipping one standard is not the end of the world or really anything more than a mild inconvenience for the small handful of people who need actual “Telnet” as opposed to Netcat or socat, both of which are far better than base Telnet.
- tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
  > yes, do not buy equipment that has acquired so much tech debt that it still requires telnet. No, you already own this capital equipment. It's the laptops running macOS that are ephemeral and disposable. I don't care for excuses or workarounds; why did they do it? It was an explicit decision whilst leaving a lot more—arguably more useless—garbage in. Every OS that removed telnet did so for a symbolic reason, not because it was helpful technically.
  - theParadox42 8mo ago
    It seems rather typical for Apple. The removal of the headphone jack obsoleted thousands of consumer devices.
its_magic 8mo ago
Ubuntu and derivates removing telnet from the default install, along with other basic tools like traceroute etc, was one of the driving factors toward me creating my own distro. I'm sick of basic stuff being omitted because somebody just decided it's not needed anymore.
- jmb99 8mo ago
  How on god’s green earth is `sudo apt install telnet` sufficiently challenging to be a driving factor to creating your own distro??
  - its_magic 8mo ago
    Because I go long periods of time without internet access, and I don't want to have to "sudo apt install" a fucking thing, ever. Especially not a tiny utility that is all of 172k in size, that I might need for something. Understand? I want EVERYTHING that I might use installed AT ALL TIMES, FROM DAY ONE, so that I can IMMEDIATELY USE IT when required. This is only one of many reasons why I abandoned the giant dumpster fire that is mainstream Linux. I do not agree with their idiotic philosophy, on practically every level. You've now discovered that there are sections of God's Green Earth that you never knew existed! One of many benefits of stepping outside the Matrix for a moment.
    - RupertSalt 8mo ago
      I would never ever install your distro for this reason alone. Someone has already pointed out that old/deprecated/obsolete software like a telnet client represent tech debt. Removing the telnet client was, in part, a recognition that its complementary server was deprecated and unsafe. If everyone was transitioned to ssh and nc, [and custom MUD clients], why keep telnet around? Any software like this represents tech debt and a support burden for the upstreams and distros which carry them. You have unnecessarily assumed a burden in this way. Furthermore, ask the maintainers of OpenBSD or any hardened OS about attack surfaces. The more software that you cram into the default distribution, the more bundled features an OS or system has, you are multiplying your potential vulnerabilities, your zero-days, and your future CVE/patch updates. Especially in the face of growing supply-chain attacks and LLM-automated vulnerability disclosure. Your focus should be on limiting attack surface in every regard. It is good practice for everyone to uninstall unnecessary apps and software. Whether you use Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, BeOS or Plan9 or Inferno. Do not install and maintain software that you do not use or need. It will come back to bite you.
paulddraper 8mo ago
You can have it, it’s not on the base install. 99% of Mac users never use it, directly or indirectly. Asking that they have it anyway is a self centric view.
paulddraper 8mo ago
You can still have Telnet!!! It just isn’t installed by default when 99% of users have no desire for it.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

mmh0000 8mo ago

There are many things I want to say in reply to this. So I’ll bullet point them: * yes, do not buy equipment that has acquired so much tech debt that it still requires telnet. * there are a million telnet clients out in the world. And ones far better than the default OS one. Apple not shipping one standard is not the end of the world or really anything more than a mild inconvenience for the small handful of people who need actual “Telnet” as opposed to Netcat or socat, both of which are far better than base Telnet.

tokyobreakfast 8mo ago
> yes, do not buy equipment that has acquired so much tech debt that it still requires telnet. No, you already own this capital equipment. It's the laptops running macOS that are ephemeral and disposable. I don't care for excuses or workarounds; why did they do it? It was an explicit decision whilst leaving a lot more—arguably more useless—garbage in. Every OS that removed telnet did so for a symbolic reason, not because it was helpful technically.
- theParadox42 8mo ago
  It seems rather typical for Apple. The removal of the headphone jack obsoleted thousands of consumer devices.

its_magic 8mo ago

Ubuntu and derivates removing telnet from the default install, along with other basic tools like traceroute etc, was one of the driving factors toward me creating my own distro. I'm sick of basic stuff being omitted because somebody just decided it's not needed anymore.

jmb99 8mo ago
How on god’s green earth is `sudo apt install telnet` sufficiently challenging to be a driving factor to creating your own distro??
- its_magic 8mo ago
  Because I go long periods of time without internet access, and I don't want to have to "sudo apt install" a fucking thing, ever. Especially not a tiny utility that is all of 172k in size, that I might need for something. Understand? I want EVERYTHING that I might use installed AT ALL TIMES, FROM DAY ONE, so that I can IMMEDIATELY USE IT when required. This is only one of many reasons why I abandoned the giant dumpster fire that is mainstream Linux. I do not agree with their idiotic philosophy, on practically every level. You've now discovered that there are sections of God's Green Earth that you never knew existed! One of many benefits of stepping outside the Matrix for a moment.
  - RupertSalt 8mo ago
    I would never ever install your distro for this reason alone. Someone has already pointed out that old/deprecated/obsolete software like a telnet client represent tech debt. Removing the telnet client was, in part, a recognition that its complementary server was deprecated and unsafe. If everyone was transitioned to ssh and nc, [and custom MUD clients], why keep telnet around? Any software like this represents tech debt and a support burden for the upstreams and distros which carry them. You have unnecessarily assumed a burden in this way. Furthermore, ask the maintainers of OpenBSD or any hardened OS about attack surfaces. The more software that you cram into the default distribution, the more bundled features an OS or system has, you are multiplying your potential vulnerabilities, your zero-days, and your future CVE/patch updates. Especially in the face of growing supply-chain attacks and LLM-automated vulnerability disclosure. Your focus should be on limiting attack surface in every regard. It is good practice for everyone to uninstall unnecessary apps and software. Whether you use Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, BeOS or Plan9 or Inferno. Do not install and maintain software that you do not use or need. It will come back to bite you.

paulddraper 8mo ago

You can have it, it’s not on the base install. 99% of Mac users never use it, directly or indirectly. Asking that they have it anyway is a self centric view.

paulddraper 8mo ago

You can still have Telnet!!! It just isn’t installed by default when 99% of users have no desire for it.