Systemd is really beside the point, anyway (was Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd)

[Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org>]

Paul Jewell <paul@teulu.org> skribis:
> On 23/09/14 04:51, Antoine Martin wrote:
> >
> > Apologies if this link was posted in this thread before, I think it
> > eloquently captures some of the concerns about systemd (sense of
> > humour required for reading):
> > https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/12/459
> >
> > Cheers
> > Antoine
> Thanks for posting this link Antoine. I have not come across it
> previously, but I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed in it.

The really funny thing, to me, is that, if one wanted to go head to
head on the desktop and laptop with the behemoths, one of the most
obvious actions would be to build up GNUstep, to actually make a
working a Flash alternative, duplicate some of Microsoft’s
‘infrastructure’ crapola, and to do some other things that
_supposedly_ are top priorities for the FSF.

Nothing to do with Linux or init whatsoever, really.

Not to mention that fontconfig _guarantees_ that people who try to use
GIMP or Inkscape professionally on a POSIX platform will find a random
hash instead of a font menu, for instance if they try to use Adobe
Opticals. And there is no usable desktop publishing; just some
semi-functional and niche applications.

Again, nothing to with Linux, systemd, udev, or any of that. And one
would think breaking into the Macintosh desktop market was important,
since these people already were willing to use something
non-Microsoft.

Really I think the whole shebang, from FSF on down, gives more lip
service than effort towards the foremost of its supposed goals (which
are very difficult and not very computer sciency), and so free
software remains the domain mostly of people who would rather use
something Unix-like even if all OSes were slaveware.


To keep this thread Gentoo-specific, here is my unsatisfactory but
functioning fontconfig workaround, as an ebuild:

https://bitbucket.org/chemoelectric/chemoelectric-overlay/src/5f1f4ef766bf7d0527670170bf625fa72bfc0dc0/media-libs/fontconfig/?at=master

Most importantly the workaround disables use of some OpenType name
fields by the pattern matcher, because those fields are grossly
misused by fontconfig (although in a very computer sciency way --
naive pattern matching). There is some functionality added to allow
playing around with search priorities, too; I forget what, because
this is work from years ago already, and the software ‘just works’ so
I do not fiddle with it anymore.