<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hi list,<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
My questions are:<br>
<br>
1) With the recent announcement of Nomachine going closed source,
what does the future of x2go look like? <br>
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?<br>
1b) Or are you going to do a re-write of the Nomachine code
currently in use?<br>
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.<br>
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.
;-)<br>
<br>
2) I read that Univention is using x2go for their desktop
virtualization (see
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=UCS_Desktop_Virtualization_Services"><http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=UCS_Desktop_Virtualization_Services></a>).
Are they active supporters of x2go (i.e. donating money or
manpower to the project)?<br>
(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.)<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
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.<br>
Would it be possible to add an option for a "smaller" login
window, similar to the one used by the current NX client:<br>
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?<br>
<br>
(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.)<br>
<br>
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. ;-) <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Kind Regards,<br>
Stefan Baur<br>
<br>
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.<br>
</font>
</body>
</html>