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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    [Kde-pim] Systemusers as Addressbook resource
From:       "Friedrich W. H. Kossebau" <Friedrich.W.H () kossebau ! de>
Date:       2005-07-10 14:38:12
Message-ID: 200507101638.22373.Friedrich.W.H () kossebau ! de
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Hello,

as some of you may have already noticed I am keen on giving the system users 
more care. I think that in a connected computer world the system users are a 
key concept that needs to be treated as first class thing. I learned it was 
back in the beginnings of computing (Multics, Unix, etc.) but seems to have 
ignored more or less in the last time due to the success of personal 
computers with according operating systems, which were not centered around 
connected (=shared) ressources.

KDE is out to give *nixoide systems an easy to use GUI. So it should tightly 
integrate with all their concepts. Like the system users.

On many occasions in shared systems one would like to communicate with some 
other user, like:
1) Some user puts heavy load on a system. Listing the process table the 
culprit is found.
2) Some other user's file has the wrong rights.
3) I want to shutdown my computer but some other user is still connected to 
it.
4) Please add yours.
Wouldn't it be nice if contact is e.g. only a RMB on the user's description 
away? To phone, email,  messaging or whatever him?

How could this be achieved? For one I wonder why noone seems to have ever 
thought of using one of the first of all addressbooks in the unix world, the 
entries in passwd (and .plan & .project)? Is it because NSS LDAP is the 
answer for any bigger installation and connected to directly (help, I do not 
know much about NSS or LDAP)? 

There is a class called KUser[0] which is based on the information hold in 
passwd. But the information there is not guaranteed to help with a contact: 
There might not be a valid email address build by the login name and the host 
name, the phone entry might not be supported. Other information for e.g. 
messaging is not even available. Then passwd is only one approach to 
information about a user. Many bigger installation are IIUC based on NSS LDAP 
where perhaps more information is given, like presence id, messaging address 
etc. So it would be nice to have some backend which uses whatever information 
source is available to deliver contact/presence* information about a system 
user.

I thought about enhancing the KABC::StdAddressBook and give it some System 
users resource. But does the KAddressbook system support mapping? What if one 
has some other user already in his private addressbook? How could additional 
contact information not delivered by the system be stored? And what would the 
API to request the address information of a local system user look like 
(remote system user mapping would be nice to have one day, too)? While we are 
on it, how to integrate the system user face (the one used by kdm and 
hopefully soon across KDE)?

Then it would be nice api-wise if one could request the information directly 
from KUser.

What I want is some system addressbook, with informations about the system 
users. Think about it as the admin's addressbook of all his system users. 
Perhaps with some optional personal adaption from a user point of view, like 
with the kconfig system.

Please give me some input, thanks. I'm ready to work on this but need help. 

* finger is dead?

[0] /kdelibs/kdecore/kuser.h

Regards
Friedrich

PS: See 
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=User+Concept for a start of more 
rambling

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