:: Re: [DNG] why is polkit needed?
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Author: tom
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] why is polkit needed?
On Fri, 06 Mar 2020 15:25:55 -0700
tekHedd <tekhedd@???> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 6, 2020, at 12:51 PM, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 05, 2020 at 02:09:37PM +0100, Didier Kryn wrote:
> > > Le 03/03/2020 à 23:37, tekHedd a écrit :
> > > >
> > > > So, I would consider rewriting polkit and dbus from scratch.
> > > >
> > > > Also, who has time to rewrite polkit and dbus from scratch?
> >
> > What are the actual requirements for a dbus-like system?
> > Requirements that would allow a completely different design?
>
> Exactly. Are there even requirements supporting the current design?
> Were there ever requirements at all? We can easily see what it does,
> but it's really hard to determine what it *needs* to do.
>
> Bad sign: You know you've chosen poorly the moment you are
> simultaneously offering a) broadcast messaging and b) guaranteed
> delivery.
>
> A google search for d-bus requirements turns up, well, documentation
> of its current architecture. No requirements. Also contains this
> choice quote:
>
> "The usage of D-Bus is steadily expanding beyond the initial scope of
> desktop environments to cover an increasing amount of system
> services. For instance, NetworkManager network daemon, BlueZ
> bluetooth stack and Pulseaudio sound server use D-Bus to provide part
> or all of its services. systemd uses the D-Bus wire protocol for
> communication between systemctl and systemd, and is also promoting
> traditional system daemons to D-Bus services, such as logind.[25]
> Another heavy user of D-Bus is Polkit, whose policy authority daemon
> is implemented as a service connected to the system bus.[26]"
>
> So... all of the usual suspects. What is absent here? That's right,
> no *other* programs are listed besides the usual suspects. So who
> really uses it?
>
> Nothing I can find suggests that dbus is used for anything essential,
> besides possibly polkit. And there's nothing suggesting that polkit
> needs to be implemented via dbus. Therefore, you could eliminate dbus
> entirely and rethink polkit's implementation without undue impact,
> assuming you are ditching systemd and friends of course.
>
> (I realize I'm skirting "devil's advocate" territory here...)
>
> t
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The ONLY thing I am using DBUS for on my systems is for notifications.
Be it have something blip in the top right of my monitor when I get an
email, or gmusicplayer changes a song. psi-plus (XMPP client) is able
to read MPRISv2 over dbus to update my presence information with the
song i'm currently listening to.

Other than that that is the only thing dbus is useful for that I can
see. But I am sure there is a more elegant way to handle desktop
notifications.

but to me clear i'm talking purely about dbus, not polkit

-- 
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