freedesktop.org specification process

[Cornelius Schumacher]

On Thursday 09 July 2009 23:07:39 Rodney Dawes wrote:
> I generally disagree with the idea that in order to use the
> org.freedesktop namespace for DBus interfaces, you must first gain
> acceptance through having multiple desktops use your interface.

That's why we have proposed the namespace specification. This is a 
specification which just gets you a D-Bus namespace, where you then can 
implement your interface. So at least the intention to use a org.freedesktop 
namespace has to be accepted by the involved desktops. That doesn't mean they 
already have to use it. But it's good to have an agreement about the 
intention how a namespace is used before implementations start using it.

> This means that it will be much harder to gain acceptance (as I'm sure
> that lots of KDE developers are reluctant to use org.gnome services, and
> vice-versa, without there being acceptance). It also means that once
> that acceptance is gained, you either don't use the new namespace, or
> you are immediately required to break API compatibility. And I think
> encouraging the breaking of compatibility for this is probably one of
> the last things we want to do. This would be very painful for
> distributions and developers to deal with.

An implementation could start with using a non-freedesktop.org namespace or a 
non-generic freedesktop.org namespace (after the namespace spec being 
accepted). When the interface is done and accepted as freedesktop.org 
specification, it could just add a second name, so that it's accessible under 
the name it was developed under and the name it's accepted as common 
specification. This way you wouldn't have to break compatibility and you 
would still have the benefit of commonly agreed names.

> Shouldn't we rather be encouraging people to use that namespace, and
> get their interfaces accepted as standards on FreeDesktop, rather than
> telling them to break API when/if they do get accepted here?

We want to avoid that people just start using org.freedesktop names without 
having any consensus. This has caused some of the problems we have now. That 
said, if people follow the process of getting acceptance for their intention 
to use a namespace, there is no reason why this can't be done.

-- 
Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher at kde.org>