Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Wayland and X-Window

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@×××××××.net> skribis:
> However, what does concern me is that the "Gnome approach" will also
> be the approach taken by Wayland/Weston, and indeed by anything that
> is associated with the freedesktop project.

There is a slow tendency to spread out and try to make everything one
big Gnome, from the kernel up, whether we like it or not.

I have a special problem with freedesktop in general because years and
years ago I figured out that fontconfig’s pattern matcher is a huge
mistake, in its very design, and needed to be purged ASAP; I pointed
out the problem, even wrote a less dysfunctional variant that I use to
this day, but was faulted for pointing out the problem but not also
volunteering to take responsibility to fix it. And I was told how
could it be so bad if everyone uses it? I realize today what happened:
we are being driven in the free software world largely by peer
pressure, same as in the Microsoft/Apple world. The computer
programming culture is badly infected with a be-like-your-peers virus
(which may also help explain the harassment of women that is becoming
a big problem in ‘tech’).

I’m worried about Wayland and such because of all this. I want
quality, and projects that could let fontconfig remain horribly broken
(unable to find or correctly distinguish different fonts) for years
and years are very unlikely to provide it. For that reason, for now at
least, I’d rather resist than try to go with the flow. It is almost
the kind of ‘dignity’ problem that FSF writing attributes to the use
of proprietary software; ironic, given that Gnome is still nominally
(if not in spirit) a GNU project.

Linus, of course, doesn’t get too caught up in that; he’ll tell you it
sucks, and who is going to win that battle? Linus wins by default. :)
(I do wish we had a _working_ GNU/Hurd as alternative, but that never
will happen.)