Network Management to extragear/network

[Sebastian Kügler]

On Wednesday 04 November 2009 14:04:55 Ian Monroe wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 04 November 2009 11:54:30 Will Stephenson wrote:
> >> I'd like to propose that the Network Management stack
> >> (libs,knetworkmanager,plasmoid) moves to extragear/network in time for
> >> KDE 4.4.  This way it's released but still has the schedule flexibility
> >> to react  to changes in NetworkManager and possibly other network
> >> management backend systems.
> >
> > The Plasmoid is not ready yet, and might not be in time for 4.4. It's
> > also not easy to split off. I'd not build it for now so we don't have
> > people accidentally using it and then wonder why it doesn't work. I hope
> > I can get some substantial improvements in in time for 4.4, but there's a
> > good chance that it won't be ready. Having the plasmoid separate would
> > certainly not help development of it, but I'm happy with a separate
> > review of this piece of code when the time comes. I hope people are OK
> > with this modus operandi?
> 
> I miss why moving to extragear means splitting anything up? Also not
> wanting to release with 4.4 and have some more flexibility is a good
> reason to be part of extragear. Its the whole point.
> 
> We shouldn't give any rule exceptions though, moving to extragear
> means a 2 week stay in kdereview.

I wasn't clear enough, sorry. :)

The whole networkmanager thing has two clients right now. A 'systray' (sorry, 
statusnotifier!) based one, called knetworkmanager. This is a separate executable, 
and pretty stable. It's also the one shipped with openSuse and Kubuntu (at least).
Then, there's the Plasmoid, which is more shiny, but also not quite finished.

Both clients are currently part of the networkmanager/ directory, which we'd like to 
move into a released module for 4.4. They're making use of the same underlying 
library to interact with networkmanager (and possibly other middleware stuff doing 
the same, think of connman). So: underlying mechanisms are shared, there are two UIs.

As the plasmoid is not ready for consumption, it probably shouldn't end up on users' 
systems, but I also wouldn't like to keep it separate since it's closely entangled 
with the rest of networkmanager. The knetworkmanager thing on the other hand is IMO 
close enough to release quality.

My proposal in more detail:

- move networkmanager/ to a released module (through usual kdereview process)
- exclude networkmanager/plasma for now, but keep it in the same location
- as soon as we feel confident enough about the plasmoid, we'll have it reviewed 
  separately before it ends up in a release 

For the NM plasmoid, I'm aiming at 4.5. Realistically, without additional manpower 
the plasmoid won't be ready for 4.4.
-- 
sebas

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