From:	 "Vince Mulhollon" <vlm@norlight.com>
To:	 debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: kernel-{image,headers} package bloat
Date:	 Mon, 23 Apr 2001 09:00:07 -0500


On 04/22/2001 05:40:30 PM zhaoway wrote:

>> Hey, hey, it's for you! Do you guys really expect all Debian users ==
>> Debian develoepers? What about k12 users? What about, say Donald
>> E. Knuth? Do you really think that trivial cubersome kernel compiling
>> ability is necessary for all to enjoy? They may just have no time,
>> they may have no interests! Please don't even try to educate(??) them
>> on this, OK?

I think the problem is a lack of cultural understanding.

Compare this situation to American cars.  You've got the hot-rod-ers and
"performance enthusiasts" who will gladly rebuild their engines and chrome
plate their exhausts to get that extra one percent of performance.  Then
again there are the stereotypical little old ladies and soccer moms who
care more about the color of the vehicle, or maybe how many cup holders the
vehicle has.

Now, following that same situation, you've got the hot-rod-ers screaming
that the car manufacturers need to chrome plate the exhaust headers,
because after all the little old ladies have a busy shuffleboard schedule
and they don't really know how to safely handle cyanide based plating
solutions, and we don't have time to teach them..

The cultural mismatch, is that the little old ladies and soccer moms
couldn't care less if the exhaust is chrome plated or the intake ports are
polished.  All they care about is that they reliably get to the
shuffleboard tournament and the soccer field.

Meanwhile all the other gearheads won't appreciate the factory mods anyway,
because they'll say the chrome isn't polished enough or the factory didn't
set the valve lashup properly.  Besides, the whole point of being a
gearhead is to brag to your friends that you have so much spare time and
extra money and "skill" that you can spend thousands of dollars and
hundreds of hours to tune up an old Pinto (even though you could have used
the same time and money to buy a Ferarri instead of a tuned up Pinto).

So the point is, that the K12 users won't care that you did all that work
to make netscape start up in 5.45 seconds instead of the default 5.50
seconds.  Time is not money to the K12ers anyway.  Besides, when all the
work is done to create 1000 kernel packages tuned to each manufacturer's
possible combination of CPU, MB, HD controller, and sound card, and all the
money is paid, netscape is still going to take about 5 seconds to start up
anyway, and everyone that can compile their kernel is going to continue
doing so anyway.  One of your phrases "they may have no interests!" pretty
much summarizes the attitude of your average K12er.

Bringing us back to my thesis, using a super optimized and patched kernel
is a status symbol for debian developers and computer using "gearheads".
However, the K12ers and office secretaries couldn't care less.

So wouldn't the investement in time and money be better spent elsewhere?


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