Re: Librsvg 2.41.0 is released

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Fri, 2017-01-06 at 01:23 +0000, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> I'd be very careful in framing this issue in absolute terms like
> you've been doing. For instance, I think you need to be explicit in
> saying you're speaking with your Fedora packager hat on.

Does it matter when, when pushed to master and released, it was broken
for every developer?

>  Personally, I have no problem in having people rely on pip, cpanm,
> npm, or cargo to get their software in order to build ours - just
> like I have no issues when people need autoconf-archive for a fancy
> m4 macro. I would not ask programmers that wish to add to our
> platform to bend over backwards and use tools that are not part of
> the common workflow of their community and platform in order to
> satisfy the requirements imposed by third parties like Linux
> distributions.
>
> "It downloads third party software" is not a convincing rationale
> when we are pushing for things like Flatpak, or when we use things
> like SCSS to generate our CSS.

False equivalence?

And the current librsvg, downloading helper libraries from the
Internet, wouldn't even compile under Flatpak.

> Additionally, the fact that something that is commonly used by
> millions of developers around the world is "unacceptable" to Linux
> distributions is what I was referring to as "routing around".
> Personally, I couldn't care less about the damage inflicted upon me
> by Linux distributors, so to me there is no problem to be solved at
> all - just a reality that should have long since been accepted, like
> bundling.

librsvg isn't some little library we put in the application bundle.
It's at the same level as gtk+ in the core desktop dependencies.

Saying that it's all a problem with the distribution workflow is a lack
of understanding about what this workflow tried to avoid and fix.
Downloading random shit from the internet as part of the build isn't
secure, isn't reproduceable, is difficult to debug and integrate.

I don't think it's too much to ask that librsvg is compilable offline.