On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:40:21 -0500 James Bursa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wednesday 17 September 2008, Rob Kendrick wrote: > > It is not insignificant on embedded targets (such as the ones we > > work with), and the dependency on libmng has already got us > > excluded from lightweight Linux distributions as we're the only > > program that uses it. Without libmng, NetSurf has no esoteric > > runtime library dependencies at all. > > > > The way Daniel did it was to allow for either - you can still use > > MNG if you want (and still use libpng at the same time.) > > You're right, and I support having the option. I just want MNG to > remain on by default as it was. Qt depends on libmng so it's not > really "esoteric". And Qt *is* esoteric, just not as much. Dozens of Linux distributions do not ship with it. Requiring users to have it installed /has/ reduced the number of people who have even tried NetSurf. It /has/ cost us wider recognition and use. > > You say yourself it's not useful, because nobody uses them - plus it > > exposes us to security issues. > > We support other things that are rare. It is useful to anyone who > needs to view one. Such as? If they're pointlessly rare (such as, the only things that have them are the test suites) then why have them? No other browser supports them, or has plans to support them. BMP images are positively prevalent comparitively. If somebody actually manages to find a MNG they want to view, I doubt they'll find it difficult to find a tool that will show it them. Otherwise, we might as well just link to ImageMagick and support dozens and dozens of image format. Additionally, you've often whinged at others' suggestions citing bloat. Isn't this precisely that? It's never used, it adds to NetSurf's size, and it makes it more difficult for people to build and use. > Libmng has no known security issues. Not at the moment, but it has historically been behind libpng in receiving fixes. > I remain mystified by the enthusiasm. What did MNGs do to you? Which > feature will land in your sights next? (I don't mean just Rob.) I wouldn't describe it as enthusiasm. It'd describe it as trying to justify something that seems an obvious and easy win to me. And I'd advocate removing anything that serves no useful purpose, and never will. B.
