timedatex replacing systemd-timedated for NTP packages

[Miloslav Trmač]

----- Original Message -----
> If we want to have this working correctly with chronyd/ntpd, at this point
> it seems the only reasonable option is to replace systemd-timedated.
> timedatex is a new implementation of the timedate interface that was
> recently added to Fedora. It reads the list of NTP units from a directory
> as systemd-timedated used to do. When installed, systemd will start it for
> the timedate bus name instead of systemd-timedated. The timedate clients
> should work as expected, please report bugs if not.
> 
> One suggestion was to install it as a dependency of the NTP packages.
> Is this a good idea? Should this first go through the Fedora change
> process or at least be documented somewhere?

I think having a package that “takes over” a D-Bus service name, and installing it by default but not in all possible installations, is surprising enough that it would benefit from a FESCo sanity check, yes.  (I don’t at this moment have any specific objections to this but this does seem a little dangerous.  The flip side is that it is probably impossible for FESCo to discuss the technical risk of timedatex without also discussing the underlying conflict about time synchronization clients.)

(*Sigh*  It would be so much better if people could come to a consensus on a single design and implementation instead of “show me the code“-like writing software that bypasses some other software…  I suppose at least it is good that several people care about time synchronization.  Oh, and I also want world peace, and ponies.  Don’t forget ponies.)
    Mirek