[Flame Bait] - Linux as bloatware

[Les Mikesell]

On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 10:26, Styma, Robert E (Robert) wrote:

> To me bloat is when you load a bunch of software you do not use.
> If I only use k3b to burn CD's, the other CD recording tools I don't use are
> bloat.  If I use one of those tools and never use k3b, then k3b is bloat.

But that means you have to know what other tools k3b uses under
the covers - and it is worse than bloat if it re-invents badly
what some other tool would handle correctly.

> I suspect much of what is termed bloat comes from the politics of what goes
> into the distribution and what it included by default.

Some comes from licensing issues, some from people who just like
to re-invent instead of re-use.

> Also the people who
> want the "Install everything" option should not complain about bloat.

I don't think these are the same people, or at least not when
talking about the same devices.  The first hard drive I ever
used cost $3,000 for 5 megs - yes megs...  I have absolutely
no qualms at all about potentially wasting $2 worth of disk
space at today's prices to have 'everything' on line so a
script expecting some tool will find it instead of crashing
at an inopportune moment.  In fact I'm thrilled at how little
that costs now.  

> My conclusion is that one person's bloat is another's critical application.
> Oh well, enought ranting, I better get back to work.

Yes, there's enough difference between a full featured modern
PC and a dedicated minimalist device that the same distribution
shouldn't be expected to accommodate both, although it would
make sense to plan for document portability.   Wouldn't something
like OpenZaurus be a better place to start for a minimal
device?

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com