[X2go-dev] upcoming release

[Heinz-M. Graesing]

Hello,

R P Herrold schrieb:
>
> 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?
Ok - x2go is open and with the previous mail, I've informed you about 
the latest development. Of cause there are a lot more possibilities to 
do this and to do it more open. I'm sorry that this was not made - but 
we are are very small team and x2go is still an sparetime project. We've 
received a lot of whishes and ideas with the help of our webform - which 
- only informs us about those issues.
We'll try to change that in furture, but we're still getting a lot of 
complaints only to offer a "mailing list". Even on this important 
previous mail 8 people have answered using the webform. As there will be 
a git reposity and a wiki in future, we should add an wishlist. But what 
we really don't like is, when the communication/information about our 
project gets fragmented.
Thank you for your open words!
>
> 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.
As you might have recordnized, there is already a wrapper for database 
storage, so it is no problem to realize support for other databases. The 
fact, that we've not released a new graphical administration set yet, is 
due to a discussion on exacctly this topic. A popular discussed idea is 
building an JSON api for all administration functionalities. So anybody 
can build a administration gui or automatism even over the web and not 
in the same lan. This would solve the problem, that anybody has other 
ideas about what a administration gui should do. On the other side this 
really means a lot of work and can't be done with the existing release. 
So again this is part of the question: what is really needed?

>
> 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
Qt is a bit more that only a widget set and it is a great help because 
of so many "ready to use" capabilities. Sure - we too are looking on 
what Nokia will do with Qt, but at the moment it is - in our eyes - the 
best way to develop software for a lot of platforms. Qt is used for the 
Client, which really should be running on as many platforms as possible.

>> 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
>
The x2goplugin will be a plugin like "acroread" or the "flashplugin". In 
fact it will be a x2goclient shown in a <object></object> tag with the 
known communication protocols. You'll still have to contact a sshd 
server - so preconfigured it will use the port 22.
>> 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?
>
In the actual release, the session shadowing was only available over 
x11vnc and as an option in our LDAP administration gui. The new session 
shadowing is nx native and now available on every installation. The 
first one could also be realized by yourself.
>
> .. 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]
>
Again this was a wish by actual 56 persons - their idea was, that this 
would be better accessed by the search engines and that the hpertext 
would solve the problem of getting to long documentations. Again : Yes 
it would help, if I could go back in time and to change all this dialogs 
to the mailing list, so they would have been discussed more open...
>> 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.
Yes - I've never understood why they have to do this on their own...

Ok - dear x2go community - please understand that we are a small Team 
and that sometimes there is a bit of attractive laziness and we prefer 
to work on the code instead on communications. We'll try to relay all 
future input visibly open.

Thank you for your open words,

Heinz