Re: New module decisions for 2.22

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

cc-ing release team to get input from others.

Le samedi 12 janvier 2008, à 03:38 +0000, Alp Toker a écrit :
> Vincent Untz wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Le vendredi 11 janvier 2008, à 23:29 +0000, Alp Toker a écrit :
>>   
>>> Alp Toker wrote:
>>>     
>>>>>  + ndesk-dbus, ndesk-dbus-glib (external dependency)
>>>>>   - good from a security point of view
>>>>>   - need to be in a mono-specific section of the external dependencies
>>>>>     (because of the special rules about depending on mono)
>>>>>   => accept
>>>>>         
>>>> Hi Vincent,
>>>>
>>>> I'm not too comfortable having this in a Mono-specific section. Managed 
>>>> D-Bus isn't a Mono project for good reasons and I've taken care not to 
>>>> depend at all on Mono or other non-standardised platform libraries. This 
>>>> is pure ISO-specified C# code as much any C module in the platform -- it 
>>>> can be considered a Free replacement for non-standardised .NET Remoting 
>>>> features.
>>>>
>>>> The IPC system based on two freely available freedesktop.org 
>>>> specifications (XDG[0] and D-Bus[1]), both of which are widely 
>>>> implemented and deployed without issues.
>>>>
>>>>  [0] http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-0.6.html
>>>>  [1] http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> Sorry, I forgot to explain UnixMonoTransport.cs which may have thrown you 
>>> off. It's still in the git repository but isn't shipped in tarballs. It's 
>>> been rewritten to use standard Unix interfaces in the file 
>>> UnixNativeTransport.cs specifically so managed D-Bus can become a fully 
>>> blessed GNOME dependency.
>>>
>>> You can find out more about the clean room approach to development in my 
>>> slides from GUADEC:
>>>  http://www.atoker.com/dbus/managed-dbus-guadec07.pdf
>>>
>>> An update on-list clarifying that it's an ordinary blessed dependency 
>>> without special status would be appreciated.
>>>     
>>
>> We should probably talk about this with the whole release team, but
>> here's the rationale:
>>
>>  + AFAIK, ndesk-dbus needs mono to be used
>
> I did mention, it doesn't need Mono so we can avoid that whole debate. I 
> put care into making sure managed D-Bus works on multiple CLR 
> implementations throughout the development cycle.
>
> It's been known to run under DotGNU (somewhat slowly) and I know there's at 
> least one educational project using it with Rotor (they're using D-Bus to 
> remotely control their robots; fascinating project using a GTK+ frontend 
> and managed D-Bus -- all done without Mono).

I quickly looked at the configure.ac, and it still seems to require
mono, via the Mono.Posix assembly, eg.

But I see your point, and that's an interesting one: DotGNU wasn't
considered when creating the mono rule.

> There were no objections to my original proposal on ddl and no objections 
> when the library was put forward again (a few +1s in fact). According to 
> the module proposal guidelines it should either be blessed as an external 
> dependency or, if the release team finds a critical late-breaking issue, 
> rejected outright. Either of these options works for me.

The guidelines are certainly in no way perfect and might not take into
account some specific rules that were added at some point, like the one
that was created for mono.

> Please don't leave it half-blessed though. This isn't how I want the 15 
> months I've spent reviewing patches integrating D-Bus with GNOME to be 
> remembered.

I perfectly understand why you feel the result means "half-blessed", and
that's not the goal. Not sure how to solve this, really.

> Feel free to forward this mail to the release team.
>

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.