Re: [gdm-list] Branch update

["William Jon McCann" <mccann jhu edu>]

Hey Ray,

On 10/4/07, Ray Strode <halfline gmail com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > We should also start to discuss what we should do with this branch.
> > Obviously it won't be a branch forever.  Some possibilities include:
> >
> >   1. A new top-level gnome.org project (gdm, gdm3)
> >  2. Replace / merge with trunk
> >   3. A freedesktop.org project
> >
> > I don't really have any strong feelings.
> >  1. is probably fine.
> >  2. is probably less good since it really is so different and people
> > may need to continue to use gdm2 for whatever reason.
> >  3. Would be interesting if we can entice other desktop projects into
> > collaborating.  We could also use git which is arguably nicer for
> > maintaining branches and doing merges.  However, we probably lose out
> > on our translation team and stuff.

> I don't think we want to encourage people to use gdm2 for whatever
> reason, and I'm not sure enticing other desktop projects to
> collaborate is really interesting (it just adds a boat load of work
> for no real gain)
>
> 2 seems like the clear winner to me, but others may disagree I guess.

So I have a few concerns about replacing gdm2 trunk at this point.
Some of these are:

 * I can't be 100% sure that we'll be ready for 2.22.
   I'm certainly going to try.  But due to a new job and some family
stuff I can't be sure.  I also haven't had much buy in / help from any
other developers yet.

  * It may be very difficult to merge / replace trunk with an entirely
new branch (but with some files using the same name) using SVN.
   Haven't tried but it scares me.

  * We may want to do branches again and SVN just sucks at merging.
(I'm not a git fanboy either)

 * There really isn't any history for most of the files in the branch
since they are all new
   And I wasn't even using ChangeLog entries for the first month or two.

 * Understanding the copyright ownership becomes a great deal more difficult.
   There is arguably some real value to starting a fresh repository
with new files and understanding who owns the copyright.  And
specifically not owned by a Queen.

  * We will need a XDG D-Bus API for DisplayManagers and my previous
experience with trying to work on this is that it is near impossible
without a single reference implementation.

  * GDM isn't really part of a desktop.  And I expect that
DisplayManager will be moving even lower in the stack (or at least
earlier in startup).  Moving it out of gnome.org may help avoid the
perception that it is a desktop component.  It is becoming very
tightly integrated with ConsoleKit, HAL, and PolicyKit - all
freedesktop components.

Jon