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> Here is one example of an ironic piece of waste: Sam Leffler's graphics/libtiff is one of the 122 packages on the road to www/firefox, yet the resulting Firef

> Here is one example of an ironic piece of waste: Sam Leffler's graphics/libtiff is one of the 122 packages on the road to www/firefox, yet the resulting Firefox browser does not render TIFF images. For reasons I have not tried to uncover, 10 of the 122 packages need Perl and seven need Python; one of them, devel/glib20, needs both languages for reasons I cannot even imagine. This is a better read than the linked article, really.

icebraining 10y ago
That's rich coming from PHK, whose software requires a full C compiler as a runtime dependency. The reason Firefox pulls libtiff is simply because it uses a generic image manipulation library (libgdk-pixbuf), which in my system it's also used by many other applications - which do require TIFF support. I guess if you have a desktop with only FF installed that may be a waste, but how many people really have FF and not any kind of image viewer installed?
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  > That's rich coming from PHK, whose software requires a full C compiler as a runtime dependency. What software? And what does it use it for?
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Varnish. It's in their FAQ: https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/faq/general.html#why https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/faq/general.html#why
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  That's a very sensible requirement. It says in the docs exactly what they use it for. Not like they put in a bunch of other dependencies and some 3rd degree dependency pulled in a C compiler.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    The C compiler in question pulls in a bunch of libraries for dealing with math problems (libgmp, libisl, libmpc, libmpfr) and zlib. Does their config language need support for "integer points bounded by linear constraints"? And why are they pulling zlib, when they also bundle it? I don't see the difference. Instead of including a specific compiler for their needs, they are bazaar-ing a full generic C compiler (along with irrelevant libraries) just like Mozilla is doing with a generic image manipulation library, which pulls libtiff since many packages that also use it need TIFF support.
    - dkarapetyan 10y ago
      I mean I guess they could bundle tiny C compiler but your point about the C compiler is more about how modern distributions bundle and distribute compilers more than about varnish depending on a C compiler. You can choose to install the smallest subset of the libraries required to enable varnish to perform its job. Not like varnish explicitly requires libgmp to do bignum arithmetic. It's how your distribution of choice installs gcc and pulls in all the stuff with it.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        No, gcc requires libgmp, it's not just a choice by the distribution. But even if it was, that is exactly why Firefox pulls libtiff - it's not like it explicitly requires the library, it's just how the distribution installs libgdk-pixbuf. Yet PHK uses that as an example of the waste created by the development model.
hannob 10y ago
The firefox example is not true. Firefox can render tiffs inside PDFs.
- LukeShu 10y ago
  I don't believe that was true when the article was written.
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
    Possibly. The article is from August 2012, and Firefox started including PDF.js sometime in 2012, according to Wikipedia. I have no idea when PDF.js started supporting embedded TIFFs though.

icebraining 10y ago

That's rich coming from PHK, whose software requires a full C compiler as a runtime dependency. The reason Firefox pulls libtiff is simply because it uses a generic image manipulation library (libgdk-pixbuf), which in my system it's also used by many other applications - which do require TIFF support. I guess if you have a desktop with only FF installed that may be a waste, but how many people really have FF and not any kind of image viewer installed?

justinlardinois 10y ago
> That's rich coming from PHK, whose software requires a full C compiler as a runtime dependency. What software? And what does it use it for?
- icebraining 10y ago
  Varnish. It's in their FAQ: https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/faq/general.html#why https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/faq/general.html#why
dkarapetyan 10y ago
That's a very sensible requirement. It says in the docs exactly what they use it for. Not like they put in a bunch of other dependencies and some 3rd degree dependency pulled in a C compiler.
- icebraining 10y ago
  The C compiler in question pulls in a bunch of libraries for dealing with math problems (libgmp, libisl, libmpc, libmpfr) and zlib. Does their config language need support for "integer points bounded by linear constraints"? And why are they pulling zlib, when they also bundle it? I don't see the difference. Instead of including a specific compiler for their needs, they are bazaar-ing a full generic C compiler (along with irrelevant libraries) just like Mozilla is doing with a generic image manipulation library, which pulls libtiff since many packages that also use it need TIFF support.
  - dkarapetyan 10y ago
    I mean I guess they could bundle tiny C compiler but your point about the C compiler is more about how modern distributions bundle and distribute compilers more than about varnish depending on a C compiler. You can choose to install the smallest subset of the libraries required to enable varnish to perform its job. Not like varnish explicitly requires libgmp to do bignum arithmetic. It's how your distribution of choice installs gcc and pulls in all the stuff with it.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      No, gcc requires libgmp, it's not just a choice by the distribution. But even if it was, that is exactly why Firefox pulls libtiff - it's not like it explicitly requires the library, it's just how the distribution installs libgdk-pixbuf. Yet PHK uses that as an example of the waste created by the development model.

hannob 10y ago

The firefox example is not true. Firefox can render tiffs inside PDFs.

LukeShu 10y ago
I don't believe that was true when the article was written.
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  Possibly. The article is from August 2012, and Firefox started including PDF.js sometime in 2012, according to Wikipedia. I have no idea when PDF.js started supporting embedded TIFFs though.