gnome-vfs not in Rawhide?

[Mike Hearn]

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 18:36:04 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> By that argument we can never drop any library, ever b/c SOMETHING might
> depend on it.

There are two ways to look at this:

Firstly, I could say: not at all! You have to figure out the cost vs
benefits on a case by case basis. GTK1 is very widespread, lots of games
and commercial programs require it, and it's not a very large library. So
the cost of kicking it out is high, but the benefit is low.

Or, I could say: yes, you're exactly right. It means you can't drop any
library that programs could depend on. That is operating systems for you.
Are you building an operating system, or merely a random snapshot of bits
that work together today but might not tomorrow?

Now, I want to see Linux - and Fedora Core - be operating systems. I want
to see lots of people building their software upon Free APIs, and I think
we need to compete with Windows and MacOSX to get there. So I'd lean
towards the second view.

Right now though it's impractical because distros ship such a huge amount
of stuff, and there's no clarity or policy behind what's supported and
what isn't. Except on RHEL where they say that the LSB libraries and the
GNOME stack are supported, and nothing else is. Maybe Fedora should look
at adopting similar policies.

thanks -mike