hplip: hp-toolbox advertising?

[Bernard Johnson]

David Zeuthen wrote:
>> Where are your bug reports to them?  Your feature requests?  Have you
>> even interacted with the hplip guys before?
> 
> No, I'm not the hplip package owner in any distribution and I just came
> across this when looking at doing the ACL support things in HAL for
> SANE. I'll probably try to talk to them, I was just shocked we actually
> ship these bits.

I expect you will be pleased with their openness and responsiveness to
making things right.  Which is exactly why I queried if you had
expressed your concerns to them.

"shocked"?  Seriously David, I'm "shocked" that we still have these
bugs: bz #218568, bz #177373, bz #216766.  Which ones do you think more
people run into?  Or do you think more people dig through hplip and say
"this is crap".

And these are direct end-user facing bugs, yet no one is saying let's
not make xen/gnome/etc. visible to the user.


>>  >  - Not only that; starting this daemon is completely useless unless you
>>>    have HP hardware. We still start it for everyone so everyone have
>>>    to suffer. That's bad.
>> and so is:
>>   smartd when I don't have a smartd drive
>>   bluethooth when I don't have bluetooth
>>   etc
> 
> Two wrongs don't make a right (and, FWIW, I'm actually interacting with
> the Bluez guys to make HAL start/stop the bluetooth daemons).

I can't agree more, but let's not set one standard for one piece of
software and not apply it evenly to others.

I don't see anyone filing bz's to remove my bluetooth icons though.

>> It's nice to sit in your tower and throw rocks, but end then end, some
>> of us work with these products and are held accountable for things
>> working or not, no matter what political or idealogical happenings go on
>> at Fedora/Red Hat.
> 
> I think I said already these are my personal points of view and that I
> wasn't speaking for Red Hat and obviously not Fedora. So I'm a bit
> unhappy to see you attribute these points of view to Fedora/Red Hat.
> Please don't do that. Thanks.

David, I apologize, this was not at all meant like that.  Let me
rephrase that as it was not at all meant to be from a concern of your
working at RH.

Some people are idealistic in this regard.  It does not affect their
work, performance, etc. regarding the product.  I certainly have an
idealistic flair, but tend to very much be a realist and very pragmatic
when things must get done or must work.

RH/Fedora (employees) still tend to be the primary motivators for making
these sorts of decisions.

IMHO, is the bz # pointed out wrong in a) reason b) motivation c)
assessment, etc. (when compared to other pieces of software) yes.

Will it get changed?  No probably not.

Can I point out a dozen or more equally egregious offenders?  probably.

If I file bz to have their icons or functionality removed, will they get
removed?  probably not.

Seems a bit of a double standard.. no?

> For the record, I know plenty of Fedora people (both inside and outside
> of Red Hat) who, like you, are satisfied (and even excited) about the
> status quo. Go figure.

What? Let me repeat:

> [1] I am generally very happy with Fedora progress, I just have to keep
> reminding myself "everything takes time"  :) 

(emphasis on *progress*)

Rinse, lather, repeat.  But in the interim, it must be usable.  <insert
& repeat about being a realist/pragmatist>