Package List Discussion

[Kalev Lember]

On 05/29/2014 09:24 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:16 PM, Michael Cronenworth <mike at cchtml.com> wrote:
>> Elad Alfassa wrote:
>>> Personally I think having virtualization that works out-of-the-box is an
>>> excellent selling point and we should keep gnome-boxes (and libvirt) by
>>> default.
>>
>>
>> Could you provide a reasoning that isn't based on opinion? Based on the WS
>> PRD and other wiki pages virtualization isn't covered by "providing a
>> platform for development of various types of applications."
> 
> Read use-cases 2 and 3 of the PRD.  Virtualization is highlighted there.

Yes, it's in the PRD and I very much agree that virtualization and
well-working gnome-boxes is a must have. But that doesn't mean we have
to install everything by default. Not any more, now that we have a
working application installer.

In contrary, I would say that we should install _less_ apps by default
and instead make sure those extra apps are properly advertised in the
application installer and tested and supported.

In the past we needed to install a lot of apps by default to overcome
the shortcomings of the installer. This is no longer the case.

Even though we are putting more emphasis and developer effort into
producing a good platform for app developers, it doesn't mean we aren't
still producing a distro for general consumption. And I'd say that
people who need virtualization are more than capable of installing an
additional app for that. But people who don't are likely going to find a
Boxes launcher confusing.

In general, what I'd like to ship by default is a good base platform. A
platform that has enough applications and tools to cover the most common
use cases: web browsing, email, document editing; one that supports most
common file formats. And most importantly, it needs to come with
_excellent_ tools for installing additional applications.


> Space really isn't an issue at the moment.

I disagree with that statement. Space and the number of packages always
comes with a cost. Sure, it probably won't matter that much for the
initial installation as long as it's going to fit on a 2 GB USB stick,
but it can matter for updates. Having more packages means updates take
longer to install; more downtime while the offline updater runs. Also
more packages means more frequent updates, which can be frustrating for
users if they are nagged about updating apps they never ever use.

-- 
Kalev