[forum] bloatware

[David Dawes]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 08:47:40PM +0400, Vadim Plessky wrote:
>On Sunday 30 March 2003 19:25, David Dawes wrote:
>|  On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 10:45:39AM +0400, Vadim Plessky wrote:
>|  >On Sunday 30 March 2003 04:09, Havoc Pennington wrote:
>|  >|  On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 11:49:13PM +0300, Vadim Plessky wrote:
>|  >|  > Ok, what about 60MB of "font sources" (PCF, BDF fonts) in XFree86
>|  >|  > CVS and resulting 20MB of "installable fonts" in RPMs?
>|  >|  > Isn't it bloatware?
>|  >|
>|  >|  If you don't want to use those fonts, just delete them. This is not
>|  >|  that hard. ;-)
>|  >
>|  >That's not so easy.
>|  >Many apps use 'fixed' font name as default fontback.
>|
>|  That's trivial for you to fix.
>
>Again, I think that fix should go to right place.
>Applications requesting 'fixed' font should be fixed first - at least to such 
>level that those apps if I don't have fixed font installed.
>Not correct behavior is one problem, but things are much worser if your 
>application crashes!

I think you should take the time to learn about what "fixed" font means.
You don't seem to understand it.

>|  >Those apps (incl. Window Managers) would just crash if that font is
>|  > missing.
>|  >
>|  >Besides, deleting 60Mb of fonts from sources would reduce size of all
>|  > Linux distributions - RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc.
>|  >I am speaing about both RPMs and SRPMs combined.
>|
>|  You don't want them => nobody can have them?  That's the problem
>|  with those of you that want to strip things down.  You want it
>|  stripped down to your particular requirements, and screw everyone
>
>That's not fair.  I am not going to "screw everyone else"

Sounds that way to me.  You can choose to not use these things
right now, but instead you want to take away the ability of others
to choose *to* use them by removing them.  Sounds very selfish to me.

>|  else.  XFree86 has a wide target audience, certainly much wider
>|  than the vocal minority present here.  Lots of stuff is *optional*,
>
>Ok, what's your understanding of XFree86 audience?

Everyone.  It is most definitely not limited to those who happen
to use the popular platform of the day.  For example, your definition
excludes me.  I don't understand why you want to exclude *anyone*.
Sounds very selfish to me.

>If you think that you have better knowledge of Xfree86 audience (even not 
>being subscribed to /active on/ KDE-Core or GNOME-devel lists) - please stand 
>up and make your point.
>So far, argumentation has been provided that XFree86 development process is 
>somewhat closed (which is not *serious* problem, in case Xfree86 meets user 
>expectations), developing slowly, and XFree86 misses crucial features (and 
>this already affects me and other users).

I don't see you doing anything personally to address this, other than
complain a lot.

>|  so if you don't want it, don't build it.  If you find things that
>|  aren't optional that you think should be, submit a patch that fixes
>|  it.  Whinging about it will make exactly zero difference.  The
>
>AFAIK, one person (Keith Packard) is submitting more than patches - he is 
>developing a whole XFree86 modules (extensions).
>And what came out of this?  He was kicked out of XFree86 Core.

So what?  Does that stop him from developing more new stuff?

>Taking your wording, was Keith also "whinging about it"?!.

>The real patch to XFree86 would be:
>* converting PCF and BDF fonts to TTF with Embedded Bitmaps
>* getting rid of legacy backends ('type1', etc.), as FreeType supports even 
>those BDF and PCD fonts nowdays.
>* bundling top-quality outline fonts with XFree86, so that there is no good 
>reason to use bitmap fonts anymore.

I look forward to seeing your patches.

>I am curious here to hear Mike Harris's opinion here - wether he is willing to 
>split fonts (whenhe does packaging for RedHat) or even delete those legacy 
>fonts from distribution.

He's free to do whatever he (or his employer) wants.  It's his job.

>|  tarballs have stuff like the fonts and spec docs broken out already,
>|  so you don't even need to download them if you don't want it.
>|
>|  It seems to me that you're looking for something to complain about.
>|  You're welcome to off course, but it might be more productive to
>|  put your efforts into the real problems.
>
>Ah, really?..  What a nice attitude!
>Saying that fonts in Xfree86 are broken *by design* and *by packaging*, is 
>just "looking for something to complain about"?

It's a non-issue in the whole scheme of things, and one that you
(or the Linux vendors, if they agree with you) can easily avoid
today anyway.

>And proposing ways to fix this is not "productive effort"?..

Actually fixing problems is even more productive.  Talk is cheap.
If everyone here spent more time writing code than complaining,
there might be a lot less to complain about.

Speaking for myself.

David