DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=sourceware.org; h=list-id
	:list-unsubscribe:list-subscribe:list-archive:list-post
	:list-help:sender:date:from:to:subject:message-id:reply-to
	:references:mime-version:content-type:in-reply-to; q=dns; s=
	default; b=Vo/8AGy1X/yI8X/4W5eCyIr/3ZSrNMx2w/GMDFgs2CXJQVycHTVh0
	N9pVY5iFCDuThkq8t0LcO7toXLGGwVJZ3NSiXen3gBoR+9RcN4Jp44ua/0cBrSYq
	+am3RuhoXnI3WZoqXldTitHKB1hpk/YObCLVUy909q3zDyRj3ClPQY=
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 11:05:44 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Installing VIM installs lots of other stuff
Message-ID: <20130513150544.GA3858@ednor.casa.cgf.cx>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
References: <5190FC62 DOT 8060100 AT iname DOT com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <5190FC62.8060100@iname.com>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14)

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 08:44:50AM -0600, Daniel Jensen wrote:
>>Providing the functionality of some obscure, barely used project is not
>>a stated goal for Cygwin.  No one here is interested in adapting
>>ourselves to people's expectations for the project if the expectations
>>have nothing to do with the goals of the project.
>
>??
>
>unxutils is just a bundle of win32 binaries of stuff like grep, find,
>less, patch, make, etc.  It's just one representative of many people's
>attempts to provide basic *nix tools, ranging from every random person
>out there hosting a win32 build of grep to the MSYS folks.  There's
>nothing 'obscure' or 'barely used' about this goal.  It's just a more
>modest version of the first of Cygwin's 'stated goals.' ("Cygwin is a
>collection of tools which provide a Linux look and feel environment for
>Windows.")

I know what unxutils is.  I checked its sourceforge web page and it
claims to have 1802 downloads.  Cygwin dwarfs that by an order of
magnitude at least.

>As I said before, I'm quite aware that there will be plenty of times 
>when the right thing to do for cygwin as a project will be to go ahead 
>and enable some more of a package's optional dependencies. Some users' 
>desire for niche functionality may outweigh other users' desire for a 
>lighter, simpler cygwin install that doesn't need to be updated every 
>day. But the concerns of the latter group of users are not simply 
>irrelevant; there is a tradeoff that needs to be weighed. Also, whenever 
>it's possible to meet both needs by making extra functionality somehow 
>available without the hard dependencies, it's worth considering.
>
>Even for the full-fledged distributions this is still a concern. In the 
>present instance, you'll notice that many distributions have a 
>vim-minimal package which depends on libc and little else, and even for 
>the full-fat vim Fedora made an effort not too long ago to remove 
>dependencies on ruby and python (though not perl) - 
>https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=752785.

Wrt unxutils, the important point is not the "obscure" or "barely used".
It is that what unxutils is doing has absolutely no bearing whatsoever
on Cygwin.  We don't care if you think that millions of people assume
that Cygwin is unxutils on steroids (a more apt description is that
unxutils is an anemic attempt to be like Cygwin but that's besides the
point).  None of us is here to adapt to the changing perceptions of what
ignorant (I am not using the term pejoratively) users assume.

If you want to argue that, to be more like Linux, Cygwin might consider
a vim-minimal package then that's a valid point.  It is, however,
completely irrelevant to use some other project or your own notions as a
justification for how Cygwin packaging should be handled.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple