Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: community spirit

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Jacob" == Jacob Gorm Hansen <address@hidden> writes:

    Jacob> It seems to me that at least a handfull of these deps [of
    Jacob> evolution] could have been avoided, by proper engineering.

Well, if you define "proper engineering" == "omitting features that
jacobg will never use", sure, you could probably get rid of a dozen or
so packages.  Personally, I'd start by eliminating Evolution. ;-)

But in general, dependency == reuse of a module, which in some circles
in considered an important element of "proper engineering".  I assume
that's not news to you!

    Jacob> The only clear winner here is Dell. And perhaps Microsoft,
    Jacob> who can afford to do proper software engineering.

AFAICT this bloat is what the users want and expect.  There are plenty
of people like you who both know people who would benefit from a
"slim, well-engineered distro", and could produce such a thing.  And
in fact there are many such distros; I know three different people who
have rolled their own Linux distros.  Do they have significant market
share?  No.  The users want bloated distros.

Mutt + fetchmail + nvi is a pretty effective mail installation and
probably still fits on a floppy if bzipped, but do people want that?
No, they want bloated mail clients like Evolution and Thunderbird.

I have to conclude that apt and rpm are big wins for the majority of
users, and do little harm to those of us who don't like the bloat.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.