Re: Proposed external dep: PolicyKit

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

> I would like to propose PolicyKit[1] as an external dep for 2.26 - it's
> mostly API stable[2], and is now being used as an optional dep in many
> modules in gnome svn and HAL.
>
> I would like to depend on it for gnome-power-manager, and I hate all the
> #ifdefs. Does anybody have any problems with PolicyKit being an external
> dependency in 2.26?

At Sun we do not yet support PolicyKit, and it is not clear whether Sun
will support it in the future.  Instead Solaris supports RBAC and there
is debate whether it makes sense to support two similar frameworks for
doing the same sort of thing.  Including PolicyKit is still under
evaluation, and no decisions have been made, but I expect it will be a
while before there more visibility.  Getting the buy-in of the security
team at Sun will likely be a long process.  Efforts are underway to
support RBAC as a PolicyKit backend.  As this matures, obviously, the
possibility that Sun might integrate PolicyKit increases, but still too
early to tell.

At any rate, I anticipate that at Sun we will continue to need #ifdef's
to disable PolicyKit functionality for the foreseeable future, at least
in those modules shipped on Solaris.  So far, this is not a big issue 
since Sun does not ship most programs which use PolicyKit.

I do not think it is a problem for PolicyKit to be an external
dependency for GNOME.  However, there will probably be people at Sun
working to #ifdef out PolicyKit code in the modules that tend to get
shipped with Solaris.  From Sun's perspective, I think it would be best
if PolicyKit were considered more of an optional dependency.

Brian