Re: New module proposal: LightDM

[Luca Ferretti <lferrett gnome org>]

Il giorno Fri, 13/05/2011 alle 12.04 -0400, William Jon McCann ha
scritto:
> >
> > - LightDM is a cross-platform solution.  Ubuntu is planning to switch
> > to it this cycle, and other distributions have expressed interest in
> > the project.  By sharing this piece of infrastructure GNOME can spend
> > more time working on important GNOME components.  LightDM is aligned
> > with freedesktop.org.
> 
> There isn't a lot of value in having a core GNOME component be cross
> platform or cross desktop.  There certainly isn't any value in that
> for a user.  

Maybe you are following a wrong point of view. Let's assume Robert will
allow to split LightDM to lightdm-core (a service, shared) and
lightdm-greeter-[gnome|kde|meego|xfce|webkit|other..] (of course
greeters). It seems to me LightDM can allow this split.

lightdm-core could be hosted and developed on freedesktop.org as a
generic, agnostic login service. I think you agree management of
authentications and other stuff doesn't strictly belong to GNOME itself,
but they are on a lower level and shared between different... may I say
desktop environment? 

So, using this shared service, GNOME developers and designers will be
able to build up the desired experience for users, working only on UI
side (lightdm-greeter-gnome) and entrust the service for anything
unrelated to "end user login experience". We are yet following this
approach elsewhere: see pulseaudio, upower, udisk, avahi and so on. 

Of course this approach will ask us little efforts in collaboration: in
order to have the desired user experience lightdm-core will have to
provide hooks for all features GNOME login UI will need, and GNOME
developers will have to explain their own requirements and accept to not
have full and exclusive control over it.


> It is not a good idea to redesign the internal architecture
> of the login manager until 
<cut>
>  b) we figure out the best way to implement our designs for
> https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/LoginScreen
>  c) we figure out the best way to finally have good screen unlock
> functionality that supports touch and a11y
>  d) we figure out what the story will be with systemd multi-seat and
> how it impacts a login manager

So, I suppose now the point is: are we against LightDM "tout court" and
we want to implement all the stuff you listed in GDM or we can settle
those requirements end evaluate if it's more simple to manage them
following GDM approach (GNOME only) or following LightDM approach
(shared between free desktops)?

Cheers, Luca