On Thu, 24 Oct 2013, Schmitz Thomas A. wrote:

>
> On 24 Oct 2013, at 16:17, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:
>
>> Hm. The problem is that we get some oscillation (with a few year cycle) between the 'demand' for os fonts support vs tree only (as far as remember os font support was mostly requested by osx users). Anyhow, we can make it an option, but then the question is: what is the default (and who is going to defend that choice to distributers and users).
>>
>> Hans
>
> Yes, I’m aware that any default will make some users unhappy. I would prefer to have osfontdir unset by default because there’s a real speed penalty in having it set so I would agree with Alan on that one. (It would also abolish the inconsistency between platforms.) But for me the real question is: what do I have to do to have osfontdir unset as things are now? I tried some things, none worked. (see my earlier mail).

You need to set it to a dummy directory! See: 
http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/136073/323

Aditya