externalized libraries - rationale for not optional

[Caleb Cushing]

On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Seb Ruiz <ruiz at kde.org> wrote:
> wiw - Amarok shouldn't appear broken if a plugin isn't found at
> runtime. It should behave nicely, and if you can show us where this
> happens I'm sure we'd be happy to fix where possible.
>

just to clarify on the packagers list I was told by Mark Kretschman

> No, we have no plans of making this optional. And yes, disabling it
> will make Amarok appear broken.

so what's the story?

the thing is I can understand (to an extent) asking binary distro's to
not ship witout x, y, z. but you can't stop them... and in minimalist
in source distro's it's a bit different. why should I enable last.fm
support if I don't have a last.fm account. why use amarok when exaile
is smaller (I don't know that's true) by only a few k. it's about
choice, and minimalism, and to a degree bug testing. if I disable
last.fm and am having a proble with tracks in the playlist queueing
right you can rule that out. the same rationale goes for taglib-extras
and qtscriptgenerator, why am I enabling them if they provide zero
needed functionality. the problem comes to, if I disable (for example)
last.fm will the options for it still be in the menu's (what about the
others too)


> The bottom line is that you need a good justification to make
> something optional.

I disagree... you need a good reason to make it not optional.

tell me why I should install mp4 support when the only audio I have is
mp3, ogg and flac. on a binary distro I want it all to work. on
gentoo* I expect to install only that which I need or think I will
need.
-- 
Caleb Cushing

http://xenoterracide.blogspot.com