#4421 NORM Never A: Fix Rainbow's UI and internal coupling issues

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#4421: Fix Rainbow's UI and internal coupling issues
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 Reporter:  mstone             |       Owner:  mstone        
     Type:  defect             |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  normal             |   Milestone:  Never Assigned
Component:  security           |     Version:                
 Keywords:  security, rainbow  |    Verified:  0             
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 The last few weeks of broader use of the Rainbow codebase have revealed
 three problems that we need to fix in preparation for broader deployment
 and to smooth the integration path for features like the "secure activity
 installation" mechanism (#3802).

   First, olpc-update is too strongly coupled to Rainbow. This is a problem
 because it means that it's hard to modify either piece of software without
 unintentionally breaking the other.

   Next, Rainbow does not have a workable user-interface. Users of the
 software have universally been unable to follow or to capture rainbow
 traces and are frequently frustrated because rainbow fails offer human-
 readable explanations of why it is failing.  Two important facets of this
 issue are (the violations of the Principle of Least Surprise and the
 Principle of Silence) and (you can only interpret the traces if you know
 exactly what the trace is *supposed* to be). Also, the traces are not
 packaged in form convenient for uploading to me or, better, automatically
 aggregated.

   Finally, Rainbow's internal interfaces are too strongly coupled. This
 hinders development because, without a test suite, console entry points,
 and cut-points (in the AOP sense), it's very hard to modify the software
 without understanding the whole code base. In particular, you can't really
 produce a known good initial configuration, then iterate changes against
 that configuration).

 A pointer to a design discussion will follow shortly.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/4421>
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