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On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 9:59 AM Matt Connell (Gmail) |
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<matthewdconnell@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> |
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> On Tue, 2021-11-30 at 09:18 -0500, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> > A little background for the curious, and I'll just try to stick to the |
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> > factual narrative and what the main opinions are: |
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> |
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> Gentoo is in an awkward position here: as was discussed in the bug, it |
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> isn't simply a matter of setting libpng[-apng] by default, letting |
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> Mozilla bundle their own libpng, and moving on with life. Other |
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> programs on Gentoo systems, built against libpng over the years with |
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> apng support, will suddenly *not* have it, and this situation could |
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> cause problems and data loss for users. |
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> |
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So now we're getting more into personal opinion. Those same users |
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will suffer data loss if they open the same files on any other linux |
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distro or likely windows/OSX/etc versions of the same software, |
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because they don't use the patched version of libpng. I certainly |
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don't have any objection to a heads-up news item when the change hits, |
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but do we REALLY want to package system libraries that have behavior |
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that is unique to Gentoo, and not the same as even what the upstream |
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devs expect? |
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|
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We had a similar situation when it came out that our version of an |
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Etherium client (I think that was it) had some custom patches by |
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default, which were eventually turned off by default. The patches |
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were somewhat controversial, and while I think anybody should be free |
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to use them (they didn't create compatibility issues with the |
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blockchain per se), it is surprising behavior. This is the same |
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reason that we don't go putting affiliate links into search boxes on |
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our browsers like many distros do (which can be a significant source |
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of revenue). Sure, we could patch our browsers to basically give |
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Gentoo a small cut anytime a user searches for anything, or charge |
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search engines to be the default in all our packaged browsers, but it |
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just isn't the way we normally do things (and those changes are IMO |
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more transparent anway - at least the affiliate links are). |
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Now, if somebody wants to run that patch by upstream libpng and it |
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shows signs of getting accepted then by all means hold off until that |
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is settled. The goal is to stick to upstream, and we can always |
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release the change ahead of them (in this case more than a decade |
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ahead of them). |
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Really though this issue has been going on forever so there is no |
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reason to go breaking stuff until a final decision is made and we can |
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do an orderly transition. I think the change is a good one, but it |
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would have been a good one in 2010 too. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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