On Sat, 20 Feb 2010, Heinz-M. Graesing wrote:
for the last months we've been working on a new release. First we thought to bring some new features, but now we'll bundle it, because there where many changes needed.
It still will take some time to the release, but we wan't to inform you on some changes we are discussing.
hmmm --- so the roadmap is non-public, or not being developed in the open? Doesn't this imply that this is not:
What is x2go?
x2go is an open source terminal server project
but rather a commerical project, that permits non-insider people to watch it develop in the open, under a non-encumbering license?
I am not trying to be argumentative here, but to have a internal roadmap that is not comminucated in its development or implementation seems to imply a problem in project design
First of all: We are planing a multi session x2goclient for the release after the next release. So there will be a lot of work of redesigning our clients. This would be easier with only one client architecture and as the Qt client is our base for the Linux, Windows, Maemo and Mac OSX platforms, we are asking the question:
Would it be ok to focus our work on the Qt client and to stop/reduce our work on the GTK client?
The counter-view, is that if it is difficult at the presentation layer to adapt to multiple widget sets, this probably means that the API boundries are not well defined, and need rethinking.
A customary three-tier model usually has a presentation front end, a application logic layer in the middle, and a data store in the back. There are well defined boundries at each interface point, so that one can substitute (and add capacity, facility for failover, and fanout) at the needed point independent of afecting the other two.
The weblog poll asks:
Can a terminal server be part of "desktop virtualization" or will there only be virtual machines for every user?
and I suspect I am the only vote for 'No, (other reason)' where the 'other reason' I have in mind is that a administration console should be just anohter instance, albeit with specifl rights, AND, that the reason: 'Yes, because it will help administring huge amounts of users!' implies pretty clearly that Command Line API, and 'curl' and related 'web-like tools support (fr automated provisioning and management [or even leveraging the present LDAP backend into something like GOSA is not being considered]
If we would go on developing both clients equally, it will really take a long time to implement all new planned features and this will slow down the whole project. The Question can also be transformed: Is there anybody interested to help us to keep the GTK client up to date?
Please tell us your thoughts but keep in mind, that the Qt Toolkit is available on all major distros and we'll keep on developing our Gnome bindings. This will not be a preconfigured "choice of Desktop Environment".
The competition between the two FOSS modern widget tool kits, is that this pretends that, say, Tk/Tcl, OpenMotif, or wxWindows do not exist, and that one HAS to choose to stay with the latest bleeding edge 'coolness' to access some 'latest new feature'. That alone is a clear warning sign of API boundry bleed-over, and over-tight integration to one implementation mothodology
So we think we should now continue with some of the new features of the next release (as a contrast):
Yes, there will be a Browser Plugin. It will be realized as a "sponsored development" so we'll get some money for our work and the sponsor will be named.
You'll be able to integrate the plugin into a Website and you'll have all features of the x2goclient.
but part of implementing this is clearly solving a design of a webbish API to do the GETS, POST, and PUTS, possibly with 'REST' and Web 2.0 hotness. If web control actions cannot be specified into a series of atomic actions of this sort, one runs the risk of accidentially designing an API model where some state is preserved at the client, rather than only at the servers
Yes there will be a "session sharing" option without the need of a LDAP server.
I guess I am confused here - how is a LDAP server on 127.0.0.1 harder to get going that hte pgSQL database. If the complaint is 'it is too hard to set up, this is a symptom of: write a better setup and diagnostic wizard , rather than: remove the facility
What am I missing here?
The new "session sharing" option will make it possible to share a x2go session with another user, to share a already started xorg session with another user and to share a session with more than one user. There will be a system tray application which will help configuring the sharing settings.
After getting so many mails about a wiki for documentation - yes we are working on a wiki which will replace the odf/pdf/html manuals.
but how does one credibly version here -- the problem with wiki's is that the end up with locked pages for some to edit, and open pages that gather spam, som one cannot simply print the 'pdf' that a wiki might offer to produce of an entire site.
.. and what is wrong with documentation tools like the older TeX / LaTeX, or the later DocBook, which are designed for version control system friendly collaborative editting? I think a wiki is the wrong way to go for ystem documenation deliverables [having fought this battle and lost in my work with CentOS]
We are looking for new localisations. If x2goclient is not available in your language and you want to translate it, please let us know (on the list ). We'll provide a *.ts file for your language (qt-linguist).
and again, this is a 'one tool kit' specific solution, rather than the FSF .po file approach which is generic.
We'll announce the the release here on the list and on our blog - at the moment we can't tell you when it'll be ready. So please stay tuned and tell us what you think about the news...
;)
-- Russ herrold