On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Havoc Pennington wrote:

>  - The hard one: we need not only shared IDL, but a common way to 
>    obtain a server implementing the given interface, and a way 
>    for users to configure which server will be used. In Gnome, 
>    we have a 'libgnorba' library that does this. But it's 
>    Gnome-specific.

Yes, and comparable to libgnorba we have the KDE daemon and libkded, also
KDE specific.

Since the activation of servers is ORB/Desktop specific (we use the IMR
and mediators from MICO in KDE, and GNOME has the GOAD, right?) we might
want to find another way. And in case of this internet-dialup service
thing (as a daemon-like service, or?) I guess a simple approach to get the
IOR easily from both Desktop Environments should be sufficient IMHO.

Two ideas come to my mind in order to get this IOR:

1) Use a naming service. IIRC Gnome uses the COS Naming Service from
   ORBit. KDED has it's own, smaller (and more simple = less features but 
   less memory consumption) Naming Service, incompatible with COSNaming.
   The approach to actually get the IOR of this naming service (or kded
   in case of KDE) is the same in both environments -> a special property
   on the X root window.

   So I think: If we can arrange on a common property for the naming
   service in both environments _AND_ a common IDL for the naming service,
   then we're done :-)

2) Go the ugly way ;-) (IMHO) and write the IOR of the dialup-internet
   thingy into a file at a fixed location in the filesystem, accessible
   for both environments.

OTOH: IMHO it would be nice to have the dialup-daemon a
      started-only-on-demand service, because I don't want to have a
      daemon in the background eating my memory when really working
      offline a whole day for example. But by making this a configurable
      setting this issue could be solved, I think..

So assuming that the last paragraph is no problem and assuming that 2) is
not preferred by anyone, IMHO the naming service would be a nice
thing/approach. But we need a common IDL (or use the COSNaming interface 
for both environments) or it first.

And if we can't agree on a common naming service IDL we could still give
the internet-dialup service it's own property where it can store it's IOR.

Opinions?

> 
> Havoc
> 


Ciao,
  Simon

--
Simon Hausmann       <hausmann@kde.org>
http://www.kde.org/  <tronical@gmx.net>