Re: [gdm-list] Branch update

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Oswald:

> i think i made it pretty clear that the configuration is supposed to be
> completely up to the frontend (which, by kdm terms, is defined as the
> greeter plus the config reader). consequently, this is a non-issue as
> far as the common project is concerned.

Thanks for your input.  It's useful to get some perspective on what
would be required to have a common display manager.  To be honest, I'm
not sure that your perspective that configuration is 100% owned by the
frontend hsa been something that we've been considering so far.  So I
guess we can take that into consideration as we consider how to make
the daemon code more common between projects.

The daemon does need some configuration, but I guess it would be
possible for the frontend to drive the daemon configuration.  I am
guessing that this approach would mean that each front-end would
need its own configuration editor.

> > As I said in my previous email, I don't feel strongly about what we
> > should do here.  However, I am concerned about the implications about
> > creating another display manager.
>
> this isn't a new display manager. it is a "slightly" refactored gdm
> opened for other frontends. as a gnome guy, you should be least
> concerned of all possible stakeholders.

According to Jon the refactoring is pretty significant.  He seems to
feel that enough rewrite has been done that he is suggesting changing
the copyright notices in the code.  That seems more than a simple
refactor to me.

Until the configuration management has been worked out in the new
D-Bus display manager, I am not sure that there will be configuration
compatibility with GDM.  If compatibility doesn't exist, then this
will impact GDM users and I do have some concerns that this could
negatively impact people who were using GDM.

In the past I have worked with people who have created their own
custom greeters to be used with GDM.  There was nothing stopping people
from creating their own greeters using the old logic.  There just were
not enough people doing this sort of thing to warrant exposing the
stdin/stdout interfaces as stable.

The rewrite makes these interfaces a bit more stable via using D-Bus,
but it's not really correct to say that the ability to write your
own greeter is a radical new feature introduced in the GDM D-Bus
rewrite.

> > If the new display manager is a different project, then I am unsure
> > how we should manage things going forward for GDM. 
> not at all. the next gdm release just becomes xdgdm/gnome.
>
> on the release management part ... it is way simpler if one doesn't
> actually strive for a common xdgdm executable and compatible frontends
> that can be switched at any time. instead, the backend would contain
> some #ifdefs to be compiled into gdm/kdm/xdm/foodm. major rework would
> have to be done on branches, so every subproject could at any time just
> branch off trunk and make a release of its own.
> then you could still release "gdm" and your above question would become
> meaningless.

An inteeresting idea.

Brian