Ubuntu's application indicators and GeoClue

[Bastien Nocera]

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 17:10 +0300, Henri Bergius wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Bastien Nocera <hadess at hadess.net> wrote:
> > I think it's useless having an applet to do that, which exposes far too
> > much technical information, when we don't even have a proper setup
> > application.
> 
> I don't think "Stop GPS" is too much technical information. Mobile
> users do care about their battery life. And IMO, this sort of stuff is
> way better to handle via an applet or menu than a full-blown settings
> app.
> 
> And also, knowing that location information is being used can be
> useful, if not for alleviating privacy concerns.

Which is why we need an authorisation framework for application to use
that data.

And we don't really have a way to disable providers on a system level
either. Even if we shut it down, an application might be able to bring
it up again.

I would:
1) Add checks in all the providers that only Geoclue master can talk to
it
2) Add a way to override that in case we want to do some debugging
3) Add an authentication framework to Geoclue itself (similar to what
PolicyKit provides)
4) Make sure that per application options are respected, and data that
shouldn't be is not leaked to other listening applications

Seems to me there's quite a bit of work before even contemplating having
a application indicator applet...