Bryan Ischo wrote:
As you say that programs exist from 20+ years ago.[...]Bryan Ischo wrote:
Probably you have respond to yourself.The number of users of these programs is probably not terribly large, but then again, the size of these programs and the difficulty in maintaining them is incredibly small (they have been a part of the base X system for about 20 years now and as far as I know there has not been a bug or maintaince issue with these programs in 20 years!).
I think that what you are referring to is my statement that "the number of
users of this program is probably not terribly large". But please balance
that against the facts that 1) these programs have been a part of the base
distribution for 20 years, 2) I am only supposing that the number of users
is not large, I have no idea how many people are actually using it, and 3)
these programs have not caused any kind of problem that I am aware of
since the beginning of the X11 project some 20+ years ago!
Fedora is a desktop distribuition: it needs something new and useful, not something bit usable and bit known.
Prove me that xcalc is better than kcalc or gcalculator, two programs that are linked in kde/gnome menù and so well known...
This programs are surely less "famous" than alternatives included in desktop enviroments.If nobody use them why they should increase packet's size?And why not wait until the X.org project decides to remove these programs to do that? The simple fact is that it has taken MORE maintainance work to prematurely remove these programs, for no apparent reason, than it ever did to just leave them in. And it in no way satisfies any user to have these programs removed nor does it improve the Fedora Core distribution.
That's a very fine line to walk. How do we know that "nobody uses them"? What's the process by which the Fedora team decides that "nobody" uses a particular program? Are they applying their criteria consistently for all programs? Or is it just that when one developer arbitrarily decides that he/she doesn't *think* that something is useful, that he/she can just delete it? And if there are then requests from users to put those programs back in, is it standard policy to ignore them?
*I* don't use *any* of the KDE programs. Should Fedora just go ahead and remove KDE because some subset of users don't use it?
Of course there have to be tradeoffs and decisions made about what programs to include and what not. I'm just saying that 1) the policy should be applied consistently, 2) users' opinions should be included in the decision making process, 3) extra consideration should be given to "legacy" applications that have existed for 20+ years, and 4) if a program is to be removed, it should ideally already have a replacement RPM to make it available to users who still want it.
I have no idea if (1) was true in this case, but I am pretty sure that (2)
and (3) were not true, and that (4) was definitely not true.
At the same time, as written before, fedora is not used by experts, but by new users, so i can conclude that this programs are not used from everybody.
This is absolutely THE worst mode for acting...The most frustrating thing is that Mike A. Harris simply gives no reason for removing them, and seems to refuse to respond to user's pleas to leave these insignificant programs in the x11-xorg RPM. All that is necessary to put these programs back in is the removal of two or three comment characters that Mike A. Harris added to the spec file. That's it. Why won't he do this?
Not sure what you mean here. It's worse for the program to have been
removed without (reasonable) explanation, or it's worse to listen to users
and put it back in?
The first.
I think that everyman should response on his actions when somebodyAre these decisions made by a collective of developers at Fedora or is it all the work of just one person? If there is collective input on this, can I please hear some thoughts from other developers? If it's the work of just one person, can I please at least hear a reasonable explanation from that person about why this has been done?
asks...
I think I agree, if I understand what you are saying.
Thank you, and best wishes, Bryan
p.s. You may wonder how I respond so quickly to these emails. Ironically enough it's because I get notification *via xbiff, one of the programs removed by Mike A. Harris*, whenever there is new email on this list.
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Bryan Ischo bryan@xxxxxxxxx N, R, 6
New York, NY, USA http://www.ischo.com RedHat Linux 7.3
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So xbiff is an email client. How does it works? Bye
