Re: [Michael Bacarella <mbac@nyct.net>] GNOME architectural suggestion..

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx> writes:

> > Wouldn't this be easier if you could just tell the user "ok, click START,
> > click Internet, click E-Mail, click Configure" and once they set it all
> > up, it is stored in a standard location. Then, when the user goes to check
> > their mail, the e-mail client will just load the config from the system
> > and handle it transparently?
> 
> I have been suggesting this on the hackers list: Using CORBA to
> provide APIs to system information.   
> 
> My reason was a different though: currently Unix lacks a standard API
> for various tasks:
> 
>     - How do you add a service to inetd?
>     - How do you add a user?
>     - How to you add a pam module?
>     - How do you register a new protocol in the system?
>     - How do you create a new ppp dialup line?
> 
> My suggestion has been so far to provide a CORBA interface for various
> of the system services and providing a name server/activation facility
> like the one found on GNOME.

Well, if we provide a real "good" CORBA interface for UNIX services like
the above, this will also help other UNIXes.

If we have the CORBA API, we can turn gnome-linuxconf into "gnome-unixconf"
(some kind of ...) and it should be portable to any UNIX system. The only
problem is to write the CORBA server on each system, but the client part
will be the same.

This is really a good idea.

-- 
Martin Baulig - martin@home-of-linux.org - http://www.home-of-linux.org