[arch-general] Another rant on arch way abuse and false promises

[Arvid Picciani]

Allan McRae wrote:

> Can you actually point out what is broken with dbus?  That would 
> actually clarify why you want it removed from cups, because as I 
> commented in that bug report, the only advantage I see there is saving 
> 4Mb of deps off your system.


I'm aware that minimalism is not a valid argument.
My point was, that adding specific features for supporting a corner case 
for a specific subset of users, is a way worse argument.

> So far you opinion means nothing to me as it is only a rant with very 
> little backing in terms of information.

I have not provided details on dbus, because it is irrelevant to the 
argument. It is undeniable that my most pressing concern is removing 
dbus where the arch way argument holds (i will NOT post bug reports that 
remove dbus from packages where it is upstream default), however this 
does in no way affect the validity of my points.

If you care anyway:  dbus does crash frequently and some software that 
has been configured with it, dies ungracefully, leaving the system dead.
Additionally hal is using 100% cpu on my system. I don't care to fix 
this, as i see no requirement for any of this software in the first 
place. This is a minimalism argument, yes, but it is in compliance with 
arch ideas under the conditions:

- the effected software has not been built under the
   assumption the dependency is available
     this would for example not hold true for any gnome app.
     if i would complain about gnome depending on dbus,
     it would indeed be an invalid point

- the upstream encourages usage of the software without that dependency
     default configure options are an easy indicator for this.1

- technical elegance beats "ease of use"
     if reading the manual leads to a better user experience
     then using a non default convenience option

- there are multiple "correct" ways
     Arch is not about gnome.

-- 
Arvid
Asgaard Technologies