Re: New modules in 2.14



Hello.

On Mon, 2006-16-01 at 19:13 -0700, Elijah Newren wrote:
> Ok, here's what I'm guessing is the rough module consensus after
> having re-read or skimmed a ton of emails:
> 
> In:
> - gnome-power-manager

I don't think it's appropriate to include gnome-power-manager at this
point.  There are a number of reasons for this.

First, I don't think that g-p-m itself and the technologies that it
depend on are mature enough that we should standardise on any particular
solution yet.  g-p-m is one way of cracking the power management egg and
I think there are a lot of better possibilities.

Certainly, at the current time, it appears to be the best offering.
However, after discussing this at length at Ubuntu Below Zero, I
believe, that we'd be better served by a system with the two following
key properties:

1. Based on system daemon.
  This would make the system more secure as a normal user process
  wouldn't be given the ability to 'suspend now' as g-p-m (and 
  any system which makes policy decisions at user privilege) currently
  requires we provide it with.  This (and other privileges that g-p-m
  need to be provided with) have serious security implications.
  Having a system daemon would also mean that the policy system runs
  when the user is not logged in without resorting to hacks like gdm
  invoking a private copy of g-p-m.

2. More platform-neutral approach.
  The technologies on which g-p-m is based have seen wide acceptance
  from other desktops.  We should try and create a power management
  system that has the same acceptance.  g-p-m is very Gnome-centric.
  With a faceless system daemon doing all the real hard work we could
  have multiple configuration front-ends (Gnome, Qt, etc).

Of course, this wonderful system does not exist.  Again,
gnome-power-manager is the best offering we have at this time.

This does not mean, however, that we should put include it in Gnome
proper.  Once things are in, they have a tendency to stay around
forever.  Applications form hard dependencies on them.  If we are going
to standardise on a solution it should be the best possible solution --
not just the best thing that we have right now.  If we aren't sure that
the thing we have now is the best possible solution then it's
appropriate to wait.

Another issue is that right now some distributions are using power
management systems that are vastly different from how g-p-m works.  If
we include g-p-m we are encouraging people to depend on it and making
life difficult for those distributions that do not want to ship it.

Essentially, I think that (a) we should not rush into this and (b) we
should, at the current time, leave this up to distributions to decide.
We do them no harm by not including it since they can include it anyway.

I'm not subscribed to the list so please cc: me on any replies.

Cheers.

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part



[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]