Comment 33 for bug 589485

>Sure, consider it an official position. I don't think it's
>unreasonable. Especially if you assume that lower-DPI displays are
>likely to be higher-resolution and thus physically huge, meaning that
>people sit further away from them, and that displays with a meaningfully
>higher DPI are almost always found in phones (as well as some laptops)
>these days, meaning that people hold them a great deal closer to their
>face.

The problem with fixed dpi is not really with very large screens - you're right, people use them from farther away; not with phones either - I sincerely doubt they use the default X configuration, so they don't really care about this.
It is for laptops, what I would say the majority of the new linux users have - how many student have you seen in a university that use mainly a fixed pc?
With laptops, you can't really choose the distance at which you sit from the screen, you're bound by the keyboard.
Still, laptops and netbooks have greatly varying screen resolutions, from 96dpi to 150 and more.
One size fits all is not going to work here.

>Saying 'well, don't go to that website then' isn't helpful to anyone at
>all, and makes us look like we value strict technical correctness ('but
>don't you know what the true definition of a point is?!?') over an
>actual working system. While we do value strict technical correctness,
>we don't value it to the point of crippling everything else.

When I recalled the definition of point, I did for a reason.
Programs count on that to work correctly, to not show fonts too small to be easily read; to make "100% zoom" even make sense.

At resolution over 130dpi (not rare at all today on portable systems) default fonts get hard to read if you stick to 96 "logical" dpi.

Now, this is not what I'd call an actual working system.

Moreover, if the problem resides in websites, than it must be addressed in browsers. I read that firefox already does this; I don't know if it really does, on Debian it uses system dpi, but then you should file a bug if you think it shouldn't; breaking the browser's more logical behaviour to fix broken web design is a solution, breaking the whole X is not...

The only real argument against using the real screen size is for huge screens, like TV (for projectors the problem doesn't subsist, they don't have an intrinsic screen size.)
I don't even know how many TVs report their real physical size on EDID; I tried only one and it didn't. (As for large computer screens, the most widespread size I see around these days is about 24" 16:9, 1920x1080 points. Which makes a lucky 96dpi, so they don't get hurt whatever the choice.)
Anyway, if you care for the lots of huge LCD owners, you could set a maximum size over which switch to 96dpi.
I ask you again to reconsider your decision.