Re: [gdm-list] GDM trunk will be used for GNOME 2.24.

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Willie:

> While I disagree with Brian's assessment (I think he tends to lean more 
> to the 'it's OK as long as an able-bodied sysadmin can configure the 
> system for the disabled user' side than the 'let the user be 
> independent' side), I'll support the decision nonetheless.

I wasn't trying to speak for the entire a11y community.  If there are
still issues, then we should still discuss.  The release team has gone
back and forth on this issue a few times already, and it would not
surprise me if that continues a few more times until we get full
consensus.

I was only trying to highlight that one needs to manually configure
GDM to support the launching of AT programs with either the old or new
GDM.  I don't believe any distro turns on a11y by default, so a11y 
features are not enabled by default in either the old or new GDM.
So this issue is not as serious (in my opinion) as was originally
stated.  People seemed to be saying that the old GDM supported
launching AT programs out-of-the-box and the new one does not, and
this is not really true.

The main regression is that the old GDM supported launching AT programs
on-demand via a gesture, while the new GDM you have to specify what
specific AT programs should always be launched along with the GDM GUI.
The ability to launch AT programs on-demand is mostly useful on
systems which support multiple users.  Since the new GDM doesn't
support multi-display anyway, the lack of this feature is somewhat
mitigated.  Most GNOME users won't be using the new GDM in environments
where large numbers of users are using the same server.  Instead the
new GDM is more designed for single-user (or few-user) desktop and
laptop machines.

Also, it doesn't seem much good to have these a11y features available
in GDM unless you have the same features available in the user session.
What good is it to be able to log in if you can't access your session
after logging in without manual help?  The GDM community has already
agreed to fix GNOME so that the same gesture mechanisms will work in
both GDM and gnome-session via gnome-settings-daemon.  This is a much
better long term solution that will make it more feasible to make a11y
turned on by default in GNOME in general in the future.  I think
accepting the new GDM into GNOME 2.24 is more likely to encourage this
work to get done than blocking it.  But that is just my opinion.

In other words, if there still are any serious regressions that need
to be discussed then those issues should be something other than "the
ability to launch AT programs by default without needing help from
someone to configure GDM first."

Brian


> Vincent Untz wrote:
> > Le lundi 22 septembre 2008, à 09:46 -0400, Matthias Clasen a écrit :
> > > On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Andre Klapper <ak-47 gmx net> wrote:
> > > > The release-team is going to use gdm trunk for GNOME 2.24.
> > > >
> > > > Note that most release-team members have mixed feelings.
> > > > Entire discussion would have been less frustrating if gdm developers 
> > > > had
> > > > been more responsible to the concerns shared in discussions. Maybe just
> > > > my point of view.
> > > >
> > > > Translations of gdm trunk are in a good shape.
> > > >
> > > > Distributors: Old gdm is still available in case you hit a regression.
> > > I'm surprised by this turn of events, after Vincent decreed that we'd
> > > go with 2.20 on Friday...
> >
> > See
> > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2008-September/msg00251.html
> >
> > Vincent
>
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