On 2022-11-24 at 04:29, Gerardo Ballabio wrote: > Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > >> A serious suggestion: it is not necessary for Debian to package >> fortune files at all. > > I absolutely disagree with that. > > The fortune package is completely nonfunctional without any fortune > files. True, I could download fortune files from anywhere on the > internet, and even make my own. But that isn't what I've learned to > expect from Debian. > > When I install a Debian package, I expect it to function out of the > box, at least for a reasonable core subset of its full > functionality. I don't expect to have to search the web for > additional files in order to make it work *at all*.
While I agree with and support that perspective and argument... > That would be like packaging into Debian a game engine without > providing any game data. For example, a driving game without any > race tracks, or without any cars. Would you ever do that? ...I think Debian kind of already does do this. The repositories include various interactive-fiction interpreters (which are game engines in any important sense, I think), in the form of at least the zoom-player, qtads, inform, glulxe, and gargoyle-free packages - but I'm not sure I remember seeing any actual interactive-fiction games in there, and with a variety of search terms to 'apt-cache search' just now I haven't found any. A better comparison might be packaging dict/dictd without providing any dictionary files. Yes, they're available out there and you could download and install them where dictd and its tools could find and use them, but it's not really functional without any installed. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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