Re: GConf vs. bonobo-config

[Dietmar Maurer <dietmar ximian com>]

Sri Ramkrishna wrote:

> > I think there are many obscurities about bonobo config, how it works and how
> > it is used in Gnome 2. I will try to explain that at full length.
>
> Dietmar,
>
> I've seen lots of "technical" discourse about GConf vs bonobo-config.
> To me thats all well and good and people can discuss this and make
> whatever the right technical direction that is best for the project.
>
> However, there is something much more important to discuss.  There is a
> set process that has to be followed when you make changes to a library
> like libgnome.  That wasn't followed.  In fact there was no discussion of
> patching libgnome to implement bonobo-config.

There is no single line of bonobo-config code inside libgnome.

> That is the primary
> objection by most people here.  We can discuss the hell out of the
> technical merits of what you did and thats great.  But until the
> maintainers agree you can't commit.

Isn't Martin maintaining that code?

>   It's as simple as that.  Whats worse
> is that GConf was the agreed upon technology for GNOME 2.0. You made a
> commitment to using this.

really, I am not aware of that?

> So far I have yet to hear a single explanation from any of you as to why
> you broke the process.  Why did you commit?  I'd like to see a direct
> answer to this question.  Because I think thats what we all want to know.
> Please answer this.

I have not committed anything to libgnome. What are you talking about? The use of
the PropertyBag interface to access configuration data?

> This is not the first time this has been happening.  We've been having
> flamefests over this kind of thing before.  The foundation needs to pick
> this up and figure out how to deal with this.  It's a social/management
> issue not a technical issue.

Yes, maybe an automatic online voting system ;-)

> How do we avoid these kind of things in the future.  Thats the discussion
> I would like to see.  Otherwise we're going to be seeing this again in
> another couple of months.
>
> It's very disheartening to see this kind of flammage on public mailing
> list between people.  I hope GNOME can figure out a way out of this.  It
> won't be for technical reasons that GNOME goes down the toilet.  It'll be
> for things like this.
>
>         sri