Replacing xscreensaver

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

xscreensaver as is currently used in GNOME seems to have a multitude of
problems. For what I know, it's only used because of the lack of any
better replacement, and there seems to be no progress in the problematic
areas, which is kind of worrying.

The problematic areas are at least two major ones:

GNOME integration -- Every GNOME release lately has tried to integrate
xscreensaver settings in the control panel, mostly with success.
But things like the screen locking window still look like directly taken
from the most horrid days of Motif. There's no faintest trace of any
remotely GNOMEish or even GTKish look there, and it doesn't exactly
contribute to the perception of a coherent desktop.
Reasons given by the maintainer for not using GTK here include security
reasons, as the code is run as root, but then again so does GDM.

Localization -- The situation here is perhaps even worse. The
xscreensaver maintainer has repeatedly and openly testified that he
doesn't give a damn in localization, or even as a maintainer has the
faintest interest in helping contributions in this area the slightest.
As a result, xscreensaver localization is severely lacking to say the
best, and as the problem basically is at the maintainer level there are
no signs of the situation improving in any forseeable future. This is
quite a problem from a GNOME point of view as this is one of the very
few major areas where GNOME localization is severely lacking, and this
situation thus effectively prevents a fully localized desktop.

In addition, Bill Haneman seems to suggest[1] that serious problems also
exist for accessibility.

In short, I think the only option to solve these problems is going
either with a more or less permanent xscreensaver fork (as KDE has done)
or with a complete replacement. Either way, significant contributions
have to be made, and I have no suggestions as for how to solve that
problem. I only have a strong belief that continuing on the default
xscreensaver route is unlikely to get these problems fixed anytime soon.

Comments very much appreciated.

Christian


[1]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-March/msg00801.html