----- Original Message ---- > From: Zeerak Waseem <zeera...@gmail.com> > On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:53:04 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote: > > On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:19:43 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote: > >> But I do find it silly, that the various applications that aren't > >> dependent of the DE, to require a dependency of the DE. It just seems > >> a bit backwards to me :-) I simply don't understand. > > That just shows that they are still partially dependent on the DE, KMail > > also needs various KDE libraries. KDE was designed as a cohesive DE, not > > just a bunch of applications with a common look and feel. KDE apps are > > intended to be run on a KDE desktop, anything else is a nice bonus. > Indeed, and it is a noble pursuit. > But from a marketing aspect, it would make more sense to have things that > aren't > -vital- for the app, unlike kde-libs in this case, to be soft (is this the > correct term?) dependencies. > Both aspects could be satisfied by having symantic-desktop as an optional > dep. > It's not a vital function for kmail to be able to tag and index all the files > on > the computer (which is what the symantic-desktop does if I understand > correctly), it's a nifty thing for KDE users, and soon probably Gnome users > as > well, but for anyone else, it's a nifty thing -if- they feel the need for it. > Much like most other bits of software :-)
Obviously you don't understand the reason for the dependency. It does not exist so that Kmail can index all the files on the system but for the opposite - so that Kmail can participate in the search by allowing the system to be able to search _its_ data. And, btw, you're not turning it off within Kmail, but at the system - DE - level. The application itself will still check to see if it could participate, only to have nothing turned on to support so then it doesn't do anything. > In the end there isn't a right or wrong, but just a standpoint. Question: are you a software developer? Kmail probably has the dependency the way they do b/c it is far easier to make it one and let the system determine not to support the functionality than it is to litter the codebase with "if (symanticDesktopEnabled)..." code. > Some don't mind > the bloat (we can agree that it's bloat if you're just going to disable the > function as soon as it's been installed, right?) and don't consider it to be > the > slightest bit akin to bloat, whilst to others it's an unnecessary feature > forced > on them (mainly thinking of the people not using kde, but also those > kde-users > that just disable it) and thus becomes bloat. No more than it is bloat for gcc to support mmx/sse/sse2/sse3/sse4 when your processor cannot. Ben
