[Registry] Re: LinuxRegistry in Freedesktop & KDE

[Avi Alkalay]

> Yes, but I would also note that the problems are not AS horrible as many
> people describe.  For example with webmin you can pretty much administer a
> server completely and through the web.  Some things do need to be
improved,
> but it's mostly in the UI part.

The lady customer I cited few e-mails ago never heard about Webmin, and she
has no knowledge on how to download a tarball and install it. RPMFIND.NET is
a complete new unknown world for her, also. BTW, "what is RPM ?"

It must be there, under her nose, as she used to get nowadays. Accepted by
*ALL* distros. And suposing LR will be part of it, is not LR allone, but *A
LOT* of software stacked on top of it. LR let UI developers do UI stuff,
without having to reinvent configuration files compilers.





> Some human readable files are TRIVIAL to read/write by a program (.ini
files,
> see ve-config for what I think is a very simple implementation that
> reads/writes such files, preserving comments and their position relative
to
> keys).  It is not hard and you only have to do it once.  Some files may be
> hard to do in complete generality.  In that case there is no need to do
that.
> Store the actual config in a separate file and create the server config
when
> needed from the UI.  The generated file can have a comment on which tool
to
> run and which file to really edit (example would be sendmail).

OK. I see this as a workaround. It works, but it is a workaround. And if a
new employee that doesn't know this translation system have to do some
administration, he will not think twice to edit the generated, "<!-- do not
edit me -->", configuration file.




> It is VERY VERY VERY VERY unlikely that someone like apache or sendmail
> will ever consider LR, so it is completely inpractical to think they will.

My job is to do LR the best way I can, listening also the good advices from
the community (you guys !!), and then make a lot of marketing.

I'm having very nice contributions and extensions, like a nsswitch module
for libc, Ruby bindings, etc. Taking Time to Let it Grow, slow.



> If you cannot READ the files, then just WRITE them.  This is not a
problem.

No problem, just inconsisten, which is a new problem I don't want to have in
my systems. It is a workaround.





> If a user is happier editting the original file, they will forgo the nice
UI,
> but that's their choice to make.  Vast majority of users would use just
the
> UI and be happy that way.

It will have to forget it forever, because 1 char he added made it
inconsistent.
And his manager will allways depend on this guy. And this guy will never be
able to go to a movie without being interrupted to provide support.




> The translation layer will be much MUCH simpler to
> write then to convince major app developers to go to some rather weird new
> config system.  Furthermore if you write a translation layer then it will
> work with existing versions of the app.

The problem with this layer is to get accepted homogeneously in distros.
Many, many, many project tryied to do it. Linuxconf, webmin, YaST (as the
most successful workaround). Where they are now? Linuxconf is dead. Webmin
is not under her nose, YaST in SuSE only.

I believe LR's level and scope is more likely to get accepted. And BTW it is
not a configuration system. To become one, Apache, Samba, etc must use it.
Configuration system is an ecosystem, not code.

And there is a possibility fro LR to not be accepted also. :-(


> Rember to think practical and pragmatic.  Nice(tm) solutions don't exist,
> because any solution has to work in an existing world, with existing
programs
> and existing prejudices.  Not to mention that the definition of Nice(tm)
> differs vastly from person to person.  For example I can tell quite easily
> that your definition of what a Nice(tm) configuration system in an ideal
> world would be is completely different from my definition.  So even if you
> develop what you consider the ideal, best solution, I will likely consider
it
> complete crack and not use it (and perhaps vice-versa).

Agree. 100%
But existing stuff is completely obsolete (in the way they store
configurations). Every modern OS has a registry. I believe it didn't evolve
because of the OSS (bazar) nature, and because OSS is not business oriented.

Regards,
Avi