Re: GConf vs. bonobo-config

[Michael Meeks <michael ximian com>]

Hi Cody,

On 15 Jun 2001, Cody Russell wrote:
> > Hmm... AFAIR GConf was supposed to be desktop/toolkit/component system/...
> > independent configuration engine for *NIX systems. It could be used in KDE
> > and probably in some other projects. *NIX sysadmins always dreamt of such
> > thing (unified configuration database).
> 
> Does KDE use GConf now?  Did they say they are going to use it?  Not
> that I'm aware of.  I really don't think this is an issue now.

	I agree :-) indeed lets take a look at a few of what might be
termed platform agnostic libraries.

	ORBit - not used by KDE
	GConf - not used by KDE / others ( uses ORBit )
	OAF - not used by KDE / others ( uses ORBit )

	etc. etc. in fact if you look at the libbonobo dependencies in
Gnome 2.0 they are as 'platform agnostic' as OAF.

	So, eg. we have an Object Activation Framework that is not only
over-engineered, but pointlessly and painfuly not well integrated with the
component system - causing unneccessary grief. All this to benefit some
hypothetical someone-else who might want to use it sometime in the future,
maybe.
	
> What is an issue, as far as I can tell, is simply the magical
> appearance of new stuff to replace old stuff without discussion.  I
> can't argue the technicalities between GConf and bonobo-config, but
> they're not relevant to my complaint.  It seems to me that
> bonobo-config came out of nowhere and is suddenly the official
> replacement for GConf.

	But how much discussion was there about the GConf design ? This
issue has been beaten out again and again on the GConf list in the past.

> Yes, I saw the announcements for bonobo-conf, the GConf wrapper.  I
> don't remember ever seeing anything about bonobo-config, though, and I
> certainly never saw anyone say, "Hey, we think GConf sucks and this is
> why.  We are prepared to implement a new library that will fix these
> defficiencies.  What do you all think?"  That would have been an
> invitation for discussion, not for flammage.

	Read the GConf mail archive. Search for PropertyBag I suggest.

> This particular library change doesn't trenendously affect me,
> personally, but I still feel that discussion could have been done more
> openly.

	I'm sorry you feel that way Cody, but please do - read the mail
archive you'll see we have nothing to hide.

>  This is the only thing I'm concerned with.

	As you should be,

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot