Re: [Fwd: GUADEC cancelled due to beer shortage]

[Jerry Haltom <jhaltom feedbackplusinc com>]

> Hi,
> 
>   + I found your mails offensively ill researched. And there was 
>     certainly no need for three of them. Remember, this is a developers 
>     mailing list.

I am sorry. I do not regularly post to a mailing lists and did not have
my entire response in order before I hit send, so I replied to myself.

>   + The GConf over the network support you talk is not acceptable to 
>     most people because:
> 
>       a) The CORBA stream is unencrypted and unauthenticated. There is 
>          nothing to stop someone connecting to your daemon and 
>          maliciously changing settings.
>       b) You need to disable the firewall on the machines in question.
>       c) In some deployments there may be other firewalls between the 
>          machine in question.

I understand the obvious downsides, but what I must point out is that
what Gconf over the network does is a MAJOR selling point. It is a
feature that no other desktop OS has, not Windows, not OS X, and it is
tremendously useful, at least as I see it.

Our office is small, about 30 computers, on a single LAN. We are
beginning a migration from Windows to Gnome desktops. MS offers a
feature called "roaming profiles", where as your settings follow you.
Basically it is a download/upload sync type thing. It totally runs amok
when you have logged on twice from different locations, with different
pieces of settings being merged incorrectly.

What networkable Gconf offers however is amazing. The same person can
login all over the office, with not only his settings following him, but
absolutely no chance for inconsistency to develop, since all changes
happen on all workstations at the same time. In my environment, it was a
major selling point in promoting a Gnome desktop over windows: we could
finally have roaming settings that wouldn't screw themselves up.

Yes, we realize the obvious downsides in both security and manageability
with a complex network, with routing rules and firewalls. But we love
the feature.

I suppose I don't REALLY have too much of a point in this email, other
than to point out that IMO effort should be directed to perfecting and
securing networkable Gconf, instead of tweaking the local file layout to
make it "work".


Jerry Haltom