Hi list,

I have been "playing" with x2go for a while and it looks very promising - a worthy successor to Nomachine NX - though I am unsure about a few things - maybe someone here on this list could provide some information?

My questions are:

1) With the recent announcement of Nomachine going closed source, what does the future of x2go look like?
1a) As far as I understand, x2go uses parts of the GPL'ed Nomachine code, which will remain available in its current state due to the GPL, but will not be maintained by Nomachine any more. Are the x2go developers willing - and able - to maintain this part of the code, in case it requires maintenance and / or security patches?
1b) Or are you going to do a re-write of the Nomachine code currently in use?
1c) FreeNX seems to be a dying project (correct me if I'm wrong), since their lead developer Fabian Franz has left the project (or at least became inactive) quite a while ago - There are no Debian packages available any more, the latest Ubuntu packages are, umm, "flaky", and there hasn't been a new upstream release from the FreeNX team in a few years, unless I'm totally mistaken.
From what I found out about x2go, the guy in the lead is Heinz-M. Graesing, who is working full-time as a system administrator and maintaining x2go purely in his spare time (again, correct me if I'm wrong). I would hate to see x2go going the FreeNX route once something happens to Heinz that leaves him unable to maintain the project. So I was wondering if there is a sufficient amount of other people backing the project that the loss of the lead developer (be it due to increased workload at his day job, health issues, or simply loss of interest) can be dealt with, should the situation arise? If that isn't the case right now, I would like to suggest making plans for it asap - the best time to install a fire escape ladder is before the house has a chance to start burning. ;-)

2) I read that Univention is using x2go for their desktop virtualization (see <http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=UCS_Desktop_Virtualization_Services>). Are they active supporters of x2go (i.e. donating money or manpower to the project)?
(I ask because I'm hoping that a company planning a large-scale commerial deployment like Univention seems to be doing would have an interest in the x2go project staying alive and expanding.)

3) I heard of legal issues regarding the project name and some other stuff. That was back in December. Since the project is still named x2go, and Univention is openly using this name, I was wondering if these issues have been resolved?

4) Browsing the list archive, I saw that you are planning to provide packages for sid and wheezy via the official Debian repositories - I understand that it is too late to add packages for squeeze to the official Debian repositories, now that squeeze has been released, but will you provide packages for squeeze via your own repository? Currently it only shows packages for lenny (regarding Debian; I'm aware that you are providing packages for other Debian-based Distros as well).

5) I understand that you need some sort of full-screen application (similar to xdm/kdm/gdm) when running in thin client mode, and that this is why the current x2go client looks the way it looks, but I would really like to see a client that doesn't take up as much screen space, especially on Windows.
Would it be possible to add an option for a "smaller" login window, similar to the one used by the current NX client:
Provide text entry fields for username and password, and a drop-down list for the session name; when a session name is given on the command line, only show username and password fields; when the session file was stored with a password, directly start the login process?

(The reason why I'm asking for this is that I see a use case where x2go is used in rootless mode to allow access to single applications, and the big fullscreen thingie is kind of annoying to the users that are currently used to the NX client.)

Regarding question 5, I cannot provide patches myself, as I am not a coder, but I would be willing to make a financial contribution either to the x2go project, if it is possible for them to accept such contributions, or to the coder providing the necessary patches (as long as the price quote seems reasonable and affordable to me) - if that helps motivate you to code. ;-)

6) Is there any way to get sound working (especially in rootless mode, say, for Flash-based websites displayed in a remote Firefox/Iceweasel window) with Debian lenny or squeeze on the server side, and Windows on the client side? I've seen a few messages concerning sound issues in the list archives, but I'm not sure if I made a mistake during my test installation or if there is a general problem and I can stop banging my head against the wall until the developers declare that the issue is fixed.

Kind Regards,
Stefan Baur

PS: I really like the idea of how you deal with printing, as opposed to the Nomachine approach - I had planned to implement something similar before, when I hadn't heard of x2go and was stuck with Nomachine, but failed due to my lack of coding skills and time.