On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> Thus spoke Marc Lehmann
> > This is not at all a distribution issue. Linux is a *multi*-user system, so
> > there is not much sense in tailoring the number of installed plug-ins to the
> > needs of, say, the admin.
>
> Playing the devils advocate here, you could also say there is not much
> sense in tailoring it for a multi-user system if many of your users are
> using it on a single user box. It's a reasonable argument, but there isn't
> a good answer for it. From my point of view, Gimp is not a multi-user tool
> (even if it can run happily on multi-user systems) so should be packaged
> for single users. University admins would probably argue otherwise.
Why yes, admins (like me) generally don't like things that are packaged
for single users. I suppose I don't care much about whatever packaging
changes are made, as long as I can still install the gimp (and plug-ins,
and data, and whatever else) in some system-wide location, and as long as
users can still put extra bits and pieces in their .gimp directory.
Being an admin lets me see a variety of interesting things, such as the
guy who ran gimp for the first time, and chose [Ignore] in the gimp
installation dialog, and then told me that gimp didn't work right. Why is
ignore an option? It doesn't seem to provide anything other than a quick
way to make the gimp not work; unless it has some sort of use, it should
probably be taken out.
later,
Andrew Kieschnick
