Startupitems don't work as advertised

[markd at macports.org]

James Berry <jberry at macports.org> on Friday, June 1, 2007 at 12:23 PM
-0800 wrote:
>> It has come to my attention that startupitems are not disabled by  
>> default.
>>  Yet they were intended to be as shown by the message:
>>
>>
>> ###########################################################
>> # A startup item has been generated that will aid in
>> # starting XXXX with launchd. It is disabled
>> # by default. Execute the following command to start it,
>> # and to cause it to launch at startup:
>> #
>> # sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/ 
>> org.macports.XXXX.plist
>> ###########################################################
>>
>>
>> Yet startupitems have this by default:
>>
>> <key>Disabled</key><false/>
>>
>> Can anyone shed light on this behavior?
>
>Hmm. A discrepancy between the documentation and the code.
>
>Which way should we change it?
>
>  (a) Change the emitted text to say that startup item will be  
>started at reboot or if the load command is given,
>
>or (b) Default the key to true, and leave the emitted text as it is.
>
>Personally, I think (b) is better.
>
>Your thoughts?

I agree that B is better.  Option (a) presents security problems, and
making server variants only to avoid those security problems has the
consequence that that a port rebuild is required just to get the .plist
file.  So B seems like a far better choice to me.

Mark