we need a spec for handling mediums

[Sean Middleditch]

On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 17:37 +0100, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2004 at 10:14:58AM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:

> > Anyhow, I don't think it's "Red Hat" - the point is "all sufficiently
> > new distribution versions" - basically the idea is to add it as an
> > expectation for UNIX desktops that the dbus daemon is running.
> 
> But that might change. What if someone makes an X-extension to fix the
> problems that led to ICE and D-BUS in the first place, for example? I'm
> worried about being tied to a particular technology (D-BUS) to solve a
> very generic requirement (configuration). Of course, I haven't seen the
> proposed API, but I'd want something that hides the fact it's using D-BUS,
> even if D-BUS is easily the best implementation to use in practice.

First off, yes, D-BUS should be an implementation detail that is not
exposed to the app; the app doesn't need to know at all with a decently
designed API.

Second, just as a small note, no X extension can replace D-BUS, ever -
D-BUS isn't tied to X in any way, and is used in many places already
where X isn't part of the picture.

> 
> > It's a trivial one-line addition to .Xclients (or whatever someone is
> > using)
> 
> Very few users would be able to do that (or want to), and we can't do it
> automatically. This essentially means waiting several years before
> upstream authors can start requiring it (assuming all distros adopt D-BUS
> right now).
> 
> > Realistically nobody is going to install a newer GTK+ or whatever than
> > the one that comes with their distribution, either.
> 
> Well, if they're using zero install, they might get a newer version
> without even noticing (if they run a program that needs it)...

If the distro packagers bothered to make their install tools worth crap,
and library developers all finally made their libraries upgradable
without requiring a system recompiling, Red Hat and other RPM-based
distros could do the exact same thing without Zero Install.  That
discussion belongs off-list, though.  ;-)

> 
> 
-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis at awesomeplay.com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.