[compiz] Move KDE Plasma Integration to KDE Git Infrastructure

[Martin Gräßlin]

Hi Compiz developers,

as you might know KDE will transition to git somewhen next week. This gives 
some new possibilities for the Compiz community, too.

Let me first describe the current situation and the problems with it: Compiz 
and KDE releases are out of sync. We are currently more and more integrating 
features from the desktop shell into the window manager. In difference to 
other desktop shells (GNOME Shell, Unity) Plasma still allows to use a 
different window manager and has not removed any legacy code. This is a hughe 
advantage and although it does not look like other shells care about 
supporting different window managers I do not want to lose the possiblity to 
switch the window manager.

Up to now Compiz has done a great job of supporting our additions, so that 
Compiz users get the same level of integration as KWin users. Nevertheless due 
to the fact that releases are out of sync Compiz users do not get new features 
when KDE has a release. This gets to a real problem when KWin changes the 
decoration API as that causes KDE4-Window-Decorator to crash (this is the most 
often reported bug against KWin). This has let to a stagnation in our 
decoration API as we don't dare to touch the code again. Nevertheless I plan 
to change the API in 4.7 and our most prominent decorations (Oxygen and 
Aurorae) will move to it.

Now with the git transition there might be a solution for these kind of 
problems: Compiz's KDE Plasma integration is moved to KDE's infrastructure and 
could be released in sync with the rest of Plasma. This means you don't have 
to care about the release (done by KDE's release team). Additionally you get 
the advantages of the KDE community like the Krazy checks [1] and developers 
going through the code and fix common issues. Translation would be provided by 
KDE's translation infrastructure ensuring that the code is translated into all 
the languages KDE supports and providing a consistend translation.

Concerning better support for changes in Plasma/KWin integration and 
decoration API, there is the chance that KWin developers will directly port 
changes to Compiz if it is in the same repository. Especially the decoration 
API is that small that we can add support to Compiz directly.

Nevertheless there are a few things you should be aware of:
* Everybody with commit rights to KDE would be allowed to commit to it.
* You would need a KDE commit account to be able to commit to the repository 
(though KDE hands out commit rights rather easily and you are all proven 
members of the community)
* You would probably need to go through a two weeks Review Process which 
requires that there are no reported Krazy issues. Last time I looked into the 
Compiz KDE integration part the code was not in a state to get through review 
directly (As you are also using C++ I can only recommend to run KRazy checks 
on your main repository, too. It should also find generic options and KDE 
specific checks can be disabled.). Depending on where the repo will me moved 
that step might be omitted.

The last point gets me directly to where to move the code. There are several 
options:
1. Own repository either in extragear or as part of KDE SC. KDE SC would mean 
releases synced with rest of KDE.
2. Part of workspace repo. Same as option 1 with SC, but you get also access 
to the private libs of workspace. This means you could add support for KDE's 
activities, use Kephal for screen handling and could in general add more 
integration for Plasma. Disadvantage: KDE does not use submodules so the code 
needs to be imported, which means the code really has to move to KDE 
infrastructure.
3. Part of KWin. That is same as option 2, plus you could use KWin internal 
code. E.g. no need to duplicate decoration code any more, make use of KWin 
parts separated from core (e.g. Alt+Tab). This is probably the best 
integration you could get.

Personally I would prefer option 3 from an integration point of view. My 
current plans are to modulize KWin which would allow to make use of more KWin 
features.

If there is interest from your side for going such a step, I would contact 
KDE's sysadmins to evaluate a possible merge path.

Cheers
Martin Gräßlin
KWin Maintainer

P.S. We will probably have another Plasma developer sprint in Europe around 
April. It would be nice to have some Compiz developers around to discuss 
possible future integration and collaboration.

[1]: http://quality.kde.org
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