Re: systemd as external dependency

[Colin Walters <walters verbum org>]

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
>
> As much as I support the integration parts that will lead to GNOME OS,
> it doesn't mean that we should ignore the non-Linux world. I'm not
> saying we should actively do the work ourselves,

My mail from the last time this came up (~two years ago) still stands:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2009-July/msg00151.html

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Calum Benson<Calum Benson sun com> wrote:

> Anyway, if anything, I guess I'd argue that it's time to actually reinforce
> the notion that the GNOME desktop is intended for use on any Unix-like
> system,

Here's the fundamental problem as I see it - GNOME filled the "Unix
like system desktop" checkbox over 10 years ago, on top of POSIX, X11,
and some random bits.  A lot of what we've been doing since is filling
in the stuff for a *complete operating system*, because POSIX and X
cover so little. Stuff like having USB devices work, power management,
and networking are hard problems that cross every layer from the
kernel to the desktop UI.  It's hard to build this kind of stuff upon
what I think of as "towers of turtles" i.e. abstractions.

I think it makes sense to continue to have GNOME work in the basic
"POSIX+X11" mode, i.e. gnome-power-manager just calls exit(0) if
devicekit-power isn't running.  But beyond that is hard.