Why do I need mDNSResponder/howl?

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

On Fri, 2005-01-14 at 11:00 -0600, Erich Noll wrote:
> I guess my question at this point would be:  how does it happen
> that more and more things are getting installed as time goes on?
> 

Someone asks the question of whether X package should now be included,
or whether Y package should now be removed, and others agree, and the
decision is made to modify the package list. Those decisions have
historically been made by Red Hat developers, although they have
accepted input from others in the community.

Hence, questioning of the package list choices by members of the
community is not only permitted but encouraged. mt-st, to give just one
example, will no longer be included in the minimal package set at my
request and by Red Hat's decision.

> It seems to me that if you're getting more stuff installed with a given
> config than you want, what you really need to do is use the customized 
> config where you can pick and choose the bits and bytes you want.
> 

For one individual system, you should certainly start with a standard
install then add/remove to taste, or pick custom and select, or use
kickstart. Yes, that is true.

However, Dave's posts clearly indicated that his intention was to
understand the packaging philosophy behind certain choices, not to bitch
about the contents of his hard drive. That kind of questioning leads to
more educated users who are then (because they were willing to question)
able to become valuable sources of input and feedback to the developers.

> If you really want a bare bones system, you can pick minimal from way
> at the bottom of customized on FC3 and I'll bet you don't get a lot of the
> stuff like pcmcia-cs and mDNSResponder/howl .  Then add just the exact
> additional packages you want to the minimal config.
> 

And you would bet wrong, which is one reason you shouldn't make
categorical statements where you have not done the research previously.
In a minimal install, you would get, among others, the following
packages and capabilities:

 - CUPS printing system (6MB)
 - Dial-up networking, including ISDN devices (13MB)
 - NFS networking
 - Infrared
 - Bluetooth
 - Wireless networking
 - PCMCIA

I would argue that none of those belong in the "minimal" package set in
order to better serve the needs of the Fedora userbase. So the
questioning is again in order to attempt to improve the operating
system, not to determine how best to install a single system.

> Finally, I guess if you really think this is something that needs fixing, you
> ought to get to work fixing it.  Personally, I'm fine with the paradigm of 
> going with a Fedora-provided config then dropping/adding packages 
> from/to that config.
> 

You know, that "get to work" comment might be offensive if you weren't
so clearly speaking out of idle ignorance. Personally, I've spent a good
chunk of unpaid time over the past seven years interacting with Red Hat
and now Fedora developers, suggesting improvements, offering feedback,
and reporting/testing bugs and fixes. Never mind the 80,000 or so page
views of my HOWTO documents where I believe at least a few people have
found some good suggestions.

If you're fine with the paradigm of Fedora Linux having a package list
already built in, why are you bitching when someone attempts to improve
that nice free resource you're so happy with?

-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz at simpaticus.com>