Common server activation

[Havoc Pennington <rhp zirx pair com>]

Hi,

OK, let's separate this thread from the specific dialup connection issue.
CORBA may well be too bloated for that, but we will need it elsewhere 
regardless.

BTW, I cut kde-devel from my CC because my mail will bounce, others may
want to re-add it.

On Fri, 25 Jun 1999, Simon Hausmann wrote:
> 
> Yes, and comparable to libgnorba we have the KDE daemon and libkded, also
> KDE specific.
> 
> Since the activation of servers is ORB/Desktop specific (we use the IMR
> and mediators from MICO in KDE, and GNOME has the GOAD, right?) we might
> want to find another way. And in case of this internet-dialup service
> thing (as a daemon-like service, or?) I guess a simple approach to get the
> IOR easily from both Desktop Environments should be sufficient IMHO.
> 

Do you think a simple IOR approach will work for more complex cases? I
think we need a general solution.

I'm not an expert in this area; I am just having to do the talking until
we get a CORBA-head to help. In particular we are going to have to
convince Elliot to give us advice. :-)

> Two ideas come to my mind in order to get this IOR:
> 
> 1) Use a naming service. IIRC Gnome uses the COS Naming Service from
>    ORBit. KDED has it's own, smaller (and more simple = less features but 
>    less memory consumption) Naming Service, incompatible with COSNaming.
>    The approach to actually get the IOR of this naming service (or kded
>    in case of KDE) is the same in both environments -> a special property
>    on the X root window.
> 
>    So I think: If we can arrange on a common property for the naming
>    service in both environments _AND_ a common IDL for the naming service,
>    then we're done :-)
> 

I think it would be awfully nice to have a solution that doesn't depend on
X. My understanding is that we use X for authentication, though.

The reason is that many of these services - such as the dialup connection
thing - are not GUI-dependent, and we want to get non-GUI apps to use
them. We are creating a free-Unix-standard, not really just a desktop
standard. At least, that's what I think we should do.

> So assuming that the last paragraph is no problem and assuming that 2) is
> not preferred by anyone, IMHO the naming service would be a nice
> thing/approach. But we need a common IDL (or use the COSNaming interface 
> for both environments) or it first.
>

Can someone from KDE give their objections to COSNaming, if any? Is it
feasible to adopt it in both environments? (While keeping whatever you
have now for backward compat, of course.)

Havoc