Re: systemd as external dependency

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Thu, 2011-05-19 at 13:10 -0300, Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:
> Em Qui, 2011-05-19 às 15:15 +0200, Lennart Poettering escreveu:
> > On Thu, 19.05.11 00:50, Sergey Udaltsov (sergey udaltsov gmail com) wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > > I think the best way to save resources is not to run anything. For stuff
> > > > like hostnames/locale/time which is used only every other moonphase
> > > > having tiny single-purpose mini-services is perfectly appropriate. I
> > > > don't think there would be any benefit in merging these mini daemons
> > > > into one. Au contraire, I'd guess you'd waste even more resources with
> > > > dlopen() and friends.
> > > Can all those services be standardized using DBus interfaces (DBus
> > > activation if necessary)? IMHO that's the only way to remain friendly
> > > to non-linux OSes, not having any bits of systemd (or distros that are
> > > not using it)?
> > 
> > Some can. Not all.
> > 
> > The hostname mechanism is explained in very much detail here:
> > 
> > http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed
> > 
> > As suggested a couple of times I believe the mode of cooperation with
> > the Solaris/BSD folks here should be to share those interfaces, not the
> > code behind it.
> > 
> > Something similar is true for the locale/timezone/time mechanisms.
> > 
> 
> Would you propose a specific set of interfaces as blessed external
> dependencies instead of systemd entirely? I believe that would make this
> discussion quite a bit simpler.

The flames have died down now. I'd like to discuss this bit
productively.

I don't think Lennart is being unreasonable in suggesting that
underlying systems share interfaces. It's what we do right now
with really core stuff (e.g. libc), and it's what we do with
other desktops for certain D-Bus interfaces.

I think Evandro's proposal is fair as well. We could set up a
wiki page listing D-Bus interfaces we expect to be available.
And not just for systemd-related things. Don't like PackageKit?
Fine, whatever, but we expect you to make your stuff implement
this interface.

Then there's the non-D-Bus API. Function calls, file format and
layout, command-line tools, unit names. (I'm using API broadly
to mean anything we expect to be true of the system.)

Can we list exactly what we expect to work for the features we
need? That way, if anybody wants to do the porting work, they
know exactly what they need to do.

--
Shaun