Re: systemd as external dependency

[Jasper Lievisse Adriaanse <jasper openbsd org>]

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 11:32:39PM +0200, Olav Vitters wrote:
> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 10:50:45PM +0200, Jasper Lievisse Adriaanse wrote:
> > I think I can say that I speak for the whole BSD community, GNOME users
> > and non-GNOME users, when I say that such steps as enforcing Linux-only
> > dependencies even more is a clear sign GNOME does not care about portability
> > to any OS other than Linux...and that this is very sad sign to everyone else.
> 
> Portability is nice, but how many OpenBSD developers are there working
> on GNOME for a significant amount of time? How many OpenBSD developers
> work upstream (so not just porting after the fact)? How many maintain a
> GNOME module?
There are at two OpenBSD developers working full time on GNOME. Yes, full time.
None work upstream apart from submitting dozens of patches (which frankly, do
get ignored quite often), and none maintain a module. I'd be happy to commit
the portability fixes myself though..
 
> This as I don't notice anyone non-Linux developers usually on
> desktop-devel-list. Only some complaints after a new GNOME is released
> and it doesn't work right away on e.g. FreeBSD.
> To me, it seems like we do not have any non-Linux developers at all. So
> as a result, non-Linux gets less effort. It seems a pretty logical
> result to me. Then obviously you'll get a thread asking to depend more
> on just Linux. It is still being *asked*; result is this discussion and
> eventually release-team will decide.
Which is why it seemed like a good moment to speak up :)

> I do wonder what portability gets us (benefits+drawbacks). I can think
> of extra users, and perhaps better abstractions, but what more?
More correct and better code in general? Shouldn't that be a benefit too?
 
> Above doesn't reflect any opinion on what I think GNOME should do btw. I
> have not made up my mind at all. I'm just wondering out loud and being
> critical.
> -- 
> Regards,
> Olav

-- 
Cheers,
Jasper

"Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture them."