From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 2 09:18:01 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9615B16A4DF for ; Sat, 2 Sep 2006 09:18:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from cydem.org (S0106000103ce4c9c.vc.shawcable.net [24.87.27.3]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D931943D49 for ; Sat, 2 Sep 2006 09:18:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from soralx.cydem.org (unknown [192.168.0.249]) by cydem.org (Postfix/FreeBSD) with ESMTP id AF87190ACE; Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:17:59 -0700 (PDT) From: soralx@cydem.org To: rsidd@imsc.res.in Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:17:58 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <950621ad0608310654h78ae0023g346abd108815ae72@mail.gmail.com> <200609010159.40972.soralx@cydem.org> <6a506d980609010247i4bfcafecoaead4b7e45311692@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <6a506d980609010247i4bfcafecoaead4b7e45311692@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200609020217.58517.soralx@cydem.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The future of NetBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2006 09:18:01 -0000 > > > If you didn't instruct it to play a movie, why it does that? > > > You did: by putting the disc in. > > Bad logic. Putting the disc in != requesting (or wanting) to play a movie. > Indeed, no. And putting a CD-ROM in doesn't mean I want to mount it > or read it. And putting in a memory stick doesn't mean I want to read it > either. But, well over 99% of the time, these things are what I want to do. May be, but it still does not mean that what you want will be done right, seen below[0] for possible scenarios. > If I want to do something else with the DVD, well, I close the movie player > and do something else. But 99% of the time, I'm grateful for the time > it saves me. Switch to a vitual screen with console and type `mplayer dvd://` -- what's so time consuming about that? > Also, if I'm the type who only ever inserts DVDs to rip them or do other > nefarious things, I can always set up the system to *not* open the movie > player automatically. Here is why I care to disagree. Spending time to configure the base system for your needs is understandable ("right" defaults can't be agreed upon by all), but why waste time to configure (turn off) all the bells and whistles? I like FreeBSD as it is now, and I'd hate to see it turn into an OS that thinks it knows all (not unlike some extremely popular OS out there. Ahem). Fortunately, I know this won't happen. I may not mind much if the desktop environment tries to play DVDs by itself, for instance, but if there are more things like that, I'd just use another OS, because clearly the goals of such system are incompatible with mine. Who the hell cares about me, yes, but I suppose it's fair to say that my goals are similar to those of BSD, and, as such, are representative of many other people. It's a no way to judge how user-frindly an OS is by whether it is able to do fancy things you described or not. FBSD is 'lacking' this functionality not because it's hard to implement, but because it's not very useful. If it was to be done properly, then you'd need to install some logic unit with serious AI. Until that time, it's best to have the machine just do things that it's good at: follow commands. > But then most BSD users see things differently. How does the system > know that I *want* /dev/ad1s2c mounted as /usr/local? I may sometimes > want it mounted as /opt instead. It's a convention. Conventions are no standards, but they are still useful. Nothing stops you from mounting it wherever you wish. [0] What if you: are already watching a movie? - have more than 1 dvd-rom and insert 2 disks at the same time, will it automagically play the first part? Will it play the second part after? Will it pause for 15 minutes before playing second dvd, so you can go make some tea? - inserted dvd to launch video without sound (to see what's on it), say, because you are listening to music? - forget that speaker volume is very high, and put in a dvd just to remove it from bench so it doesn't collect dust, and view it later (and it's 3 o'clock)? - don't even want to mount the cd, but just want to check the media manufacturer, to see how long the media will last? And then test every CD from the collection? (yeah, turning off DVD auto-play is really useful here) Do you always want the movie to start full-screen? The OS can never know what to do in all circumstances. It should do just what you tell it to -- no less and no more. Imagine if there was a desktop environ that had it's own ideas on the above and assumed that, for instance, you want to see all movies fullscreen, always with sound, play from cd0, pause 15 min, play from cd1, etc. Do you think it would be convenient to use? Break out your flame-proof suits, gentlemen (and ladies too, of course). :) For those who really feel like flaming, I have a flame extinguisher handy (it's heavy and looks like a baseball bat!) ;) [SorAlx] ridin' VN1500-B2