01micko wrote:
Hereś something I cannot comprehend. Pwidgets is, and absolutely is unashamed BLING. However it doesn´t make much clang. Is it bloat? 222KB?
This thread is about BLING not BLOAT!
The concern is rarely to do with storage size per se. People make a lot of generally unnecessary fuss about keeping the iso down below 100MB, for example, when the real issue is what it expands to, and more importantly, what resources it uses, on installation (RAM usage, number of processes started/CPU usage).
Certainly, time moves on and hardware becomes more sophisticated such that there comes a time when yesteryears hardware isn't worth supporting anymore. But that isn't my concern. Rather it is philisophical in terms of my opinion being that the "best" distribution is the one which gives the user choice (bling or no bling). If you bind the "unnecessary" bling into the system, you are forcing users to use it, when some would rather have as simple and fast a system as they can get. The best solution, I feel, is to keep bling as an add-on. What is the problem with that?!
Arguments about how resource hungry such add-ons are isn't the main point, in other words (though such concerns are important); the argument is about "choice". I sometimes use go-faster-stripes too, or system stats in pretty widgets; life and fun should go together. But bling, more generally, is not always fun, sometimes it is an unnecessary, unwanted pain in the neck(!); suchlike shouldn't be "forced" down peoples throats, but rather it should be offered as a possibly fun, useful, or pretty extra or option.
Bear in mind, however, that "bling" tends to grow in hunger in line with hardware/system developments (hence my earlier reference to the ills of consumerism).