Comments on bug 140214 - the removal of X utilities?

[Bryan Ischo]

> Bryan Ischo wrote:
[...]
> Right. There are a couple of ongoing discussions, and you probably
> aren't aware of them.
>
> One discussion has crystallised into the idea that, actually, Fedora
> Core shouldn't include everything (which is why we have Extras). Linux
> distributions take a pretty expansive definition of an "operating
> system" (practically nothing else includes office suites, for example),
> but there is still going to be stuff that Fedora doesn't try to do.
>
[...]
> Having multiple alternatives available confuses the user: which should
> he or she use? "Try both" implies that the user needs to invest time to
> choose, which is not user-friendly.
[...]
> Against this background, the removal of those programs you mention does
> make sense.

Yikes.  I have the feeling that my usage of Fedora is going the way of the
dinosaur.  I've known this for some time - I still use twm and some older
X11 programs all the time.  And this has been increasingly more difficult
to do as these older programs become less and less popular.

But I realize that there is need for progress and I agree completely with
the idea of consolidating functionality because it is true that choices
are actually work for the user in many cases.

The KDE-vs-Gnome debate must be very interesting in light of this idea.

I would be willing to maintain an extras package for these X utilities
that Mark A. Harris removed.  But can we at least be consistent and remove
*all* of the utilities - meaning, take xmessage out of there too - rather
than just some, which is not only "unfair" to those of us who care, but
also technically more complicated than just removing them all and
maintaining a separate package for them.

Unless xmessage is the "only" application available that does what it does
(pops up a simple text message in a window)?

Thanks,
Bryan

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Bryan Ischo             bryan at ischo.com                          N, R, 6
New York, NY, USA       http://www.ischo.com            RedHat Linux 7.3
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