Un-asked-for-language support

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 11/25/2009 06:11 PM, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> On 11/25/2009 10:37 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>
>> Why not asking the user/installer for it?
>
> With a English only default, yes?

Why not? This is what you currently are doing.

> I prefer comprehensive locale support
> of the box and since the default download in Fedora is a Live image,
Pardon? The default for me is the DVD, the live image is negliable.

> you
> don't get to choose packages during installation.
Design flaw - More accurately: Users should not have to take care about 
any packaging details for "languages support".

Anaconda should ask about which languages the user want to use/install - 
The rest must be accomplished by "magic".

> Again, people who care
> or want that level of control should be using kickstart instead IMO.
Pardon? The people who care about this level is the "computer illiterate 
user".

>> Right, but this isn't an excuse for a bloated default package install set.
>
> Bloat is a matter of perspective. What you consider bloat, I consider a
> useful feature.
Pardon?

How many languages do you speek? Normal people speak very few languages 
and are able to read very few scripts. Anything they can't read is bloat 
to them.

=> Only very few people actually need the plethora of "languages", 
"scripts" and "fonts" Fedora installs rsp. comes with.

=> It should be an installers duty to take care of this.

> Apparently people who feel strongly otherwise haven't
> bothered to file a RFE on this and convince rel-eng of their case.

Well, I occasionally did so and have learnt my lesson:

The nature of this issue is beyond the scope of what individual 
maintainers, upstreams and a distro's release engineers can handle.
Each of them prefers to shift around responsibilities or try to play 
down the issues.