group resource type misunderstands/misuses libuser

Puppet Version: 6.1.0
Puppet Server Version: 6.1.0
OS Name/Version: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

The group resource type supports the groupadd provider, but not the lgroupadd provider.

lgroupadd (and lgroupmod and lgroupdel) are part of the libuser library/package. While libuser is essentially a rewrite of the groupadd, groupmod, and groupdel programs from the shadow-utils package (because Red Hat tends toward NIH syndrome), lgroupmod has one important advantage over groupmod: lgroupmod can manipulate group members directly.

E.g., you can do this:

$ lgroupmod --member-add user1,user2,user3 somegroup

In contrast, groupmod cannot do this. Instead, you have to do this:

$ usermod -a -G somegroup user1

$ usermod -a -G somegroup user2

$ usermod -a -G somegroup user3

This is why the groupadd provider for the group resource type lacks the manages_members feature.

The implication of this is that in Puppet, if you want to have a class manage the contents of a group, the only way to do it (using default resource types) is to manage user resources for each user who should be a member of the group. But this doesn't scale, because if any other module is attempting to manage a user resource type for the same user, the resources will clash.

In contrast, if support were added for the lgroupadd provider, the manages_members feature could be enabled for it. This would permit managing the membership of an arbitrary group by managing a single group resource for the group, instead of managing individual user resources.

Granted, this could create the state where a Puppet user resource using the useradd provider could "fight" with a Puppet group resource using the lgroupadd provider. But this potential for conflict already exists in other places in Puppet (e.g., augeas resources can cheerfully fight with file resources). So I don't think the potential for conflict is a reason to avoid adding the lgroupadd provider.

So, in summary, I think Puppet should add support for the lgroupadd provider (and company) for the group resource type on platforms where the libuser library/package is available: Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, and potentially others.

Yay or nay?

(I may be able to work on adding this provider myself, but I don't want to spend the time on a merge request if Puppet is philosophically opposed to adding support for the lgroupadd provider.)