PolicyKit changes in F12
D. Hugh Redelmeier
hugh at mimosa.com
Mon May 25 18:22:02 UTC 2009
| From: Rex Dieter <rdieter at math.unl.edu>
| Seems frustrations are mounting:
| "On policykit and standards"
| http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/polkit-devel/2009-May/000119.html
[I'm an outsider. This thread is my introduction to the whole area.
I'm not even a KDE user.]
This certainly does not look like a healthy approach to standardization
and cooperation.
- the http://cgit.freedesktop.org/PolicyKit/tree/docs/PORTING-GUIDE
appears clearly biased towards GNOME, even though its URL and title
suggest universality: the first substantial line talks about
polkit-gobject-1 (I *think* that gobject means GNOME object)
- in a well-constituted standards process (not a de facto standard),
stakeholders are consulted before changes are made. It looks
as if KDE folks have been stakeholders and have not been allowed to
even sign-off on the design, let alone participate in it.
- for good reason, the normal output of a standardization process is a
document, not code. There appears to be no complete documentation.
- all stakeholders ought to be treated respectfully and equitably.
That means, for example, KDE ought not the be second to GNOME.
More particularly, the architectures should be open-ended, allowing
for more than KDE and GNOME. See, for example,
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeroOneInfinityRule
I admit that my reactions may be ill-founded. Perhaps this is meant
to be an example of
"We reject: kings, presidents and voting.
We believe in: rough consensus and running code"
(The IETF approach, as phrased by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Clark )
Even the IETF does have votes (but only of those in the room at the
time).
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