XfceKiosk in 4.6

[Christian Dywan]

Am Thu, 9 Oct 2008 00:45:12 -0400
schrieb "Erik Harrison" <erikharrison at gmail.com>:

> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Brian J. Tarricone
> <bjt23 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I was thinking about XfceKiosk a bit -- do we want to deprecate it
> > as of 4.6?  On one hand, we have xfconf property locking now, but
> > there might still be some cases where XfceKiosk could be useful,
> > like in panel plugins, for example, that still use XfceRc files for
> > settings.
> >
> > Of course, even those could be made to use xfconf in some way, but
> > the kiosk system works not just on settings, but on "actions" as
> > well.  For example, allowing the user to edit a launcher, there
> > might be a CustomizeLauncher capability in XfceKiosk.  The only
> > useful way to duplicate that in xfconf would be to add some
> > property, say /kiosk/allow-customize-launcher, set it to... well,
> > anything... and then set up the locking so the launcher could check
> > property locking on it to decide if it's allowed to override it.
> > Kinda a kludge.
> >
> > Any thoughts on this in general?  I'd like to avoid having two
> > separate lockdown frameworks.  Either way, I think I'd vote to
> > deprecate in 4.6, and figure out a way to integrate it more
> > usefully in xfconf.
> 
> I haven't touched kiosk mode in a long while, but I think we can all
> agree it needs an internal and external overhaul I have some rough
> ideas, but that's another email. That said I'm uncomfortable
> deprecating anything without someone stepping up to say "I'll overhaul
> the thing for next release". If we deprecate, less likely various app
> and plugin authors will add kiosk support, which is fine unless we
> don't actually replace the kiosk system, 4.8 comes out, and we're
> stuck with our dicks in our hands (metaphorically).

Stuck with our dicks in our hands?

I think if you deprecate something you normally should already have a
successor. Otherwise you sort of suggest new developers that the old
one isn't worth their time and at the same time, there's nothing new
available, so what should they do? Look for a different project?

ciao,
    Christian