Comment 1 for bug 665492

In my opinion, pppoeconf should not be removed (even in a subsequent Ubuntu release, which I presume is what you are advocating), because:

(1) pppoeconf is a useful tool for connecting to PPPoE networks on Ubuntu Server systems and other systems not using NetworkManager. Removing pppoeconf would make Ubuntu a substantially less suitable OS for servers.

(2) pppoeconf is a useful tool for connecting to PPPoE networks under some circumstances when NetworkManager is not effective (for example, https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rp-pppoe/+question/161075).

(3) When configuring other networks manually without NetworkManager is nontrivial, nongraphical tools are provided; it would be strange and inconsistent if PPPoE were the only type of connection that had no easy alternative to NetworkManager for configuring. This inconsistency would be bad because the reasonable and otherwise-fulfilled expectation on the part of users that it is easy to configure Ubuntu to connect to networks even without NetworkManager would not be met in the case of PPPoE. The user experience of finding that a system is easy to use, and then suddenly extremely hard to use, is highly undesirable. That is already unfortunately the case for the portion of pppoeconf users who want to switch back to using NetworkManager for the affected Ethernet interface, but the proposed change would make this the case for virtually everyone who would choose to use pppoeconf were it still provided.

(4) It is common for GNU/Linux systems to provide non-graphical, non-NetworkManager tools for configuring PPPoE. For example, Fedora provides pppoe-setup. Removing pppoeconf would make Ubuntu less usable compared to other Linux-based operating systems and would violate Ubuntu's arguably otherwise well-earned expectation on the part of users migrating to it from other such OSes that it is at least as easy to use.

(5) As a related point to #4, Debian provides pppoeconf, and Ubuntu is a derivative distribution from Debian. Thus, not only would it be a strange exception to Ubuntu's policies not to import the pppoeconf package from Debian's testing branch during each of Ubuntu's release development cycles, but it would also violate the expectation that the utilities available in Debian are also available in Ubuntu.

(6) Removing pppoeconf would not solve the problem, it would just prevent it in some cases by constraining users' choices. Since, as you have pointed out, deinstalling pppoeconf does not put the affected Ethernet interface back under the control of NetworkManager, removing it from the distribution would not fix the problem where it already exists.

(7) As a related point to #6, removing pppoeconf would actually exacerbate the problem, because it would ensure that there would be no easy way to reconfigure PPPoE networks created with pppoeconf after a release upgrade to a release not providing pppoeconf. In such an upgrade, the pppoeconf package would be automatically removed, and then the user would have zero automated tools that would work for reconfiguring the PPPoE connection.

(8) The problem you have described is bug 151539 in pppoeconf (which is classified as a feature request, i.e. with "wishlist" importance), and it should be fixed in pppoeconf. Fixing bug 151539 would fix the problem for users; as argued above, removing pppoeconf from the distribution would not fix the problem for users. If pppoeconf were removed, it would still be necessary to fix the bug first so that people using it could easily stop using it.

I am reluctant to actually mark this bug as a duplicate of bug 151539, because while the problem described is the same, the proposed way to deal with it is very different. But if you (yurik81) agree that bug 151539 is a better way to deal with this problem, and there are still no other subscribers to this bug (besides you and me) to consult, then I would have no objection to your marking this as a duplicate of bug 151539. Alternatively, if you disagree with my reasoning above, please feel free either to respond to it, or to simply do nothing--your bug will continue to be visible to people who can consider it, even if no rebuttal to my arguments is provided.