Proposal: Shared network-enabled virtual desktop for KDE 4.0

[Janne Ojaniemi]

On Thursday 11 August 2005 16:50, Andrew Kar wrote:
> On Thursday 11 August 2005 02:00, Janne Ojaniemi wrote:> PROPOSAL>> KDE 4.0
> should have network-enabled shared virtual desktop that could be> shared
> with other users on the network. The proposal is tentatively called>
> “Foresight”. KDE already has desktop sharing that allows any number of
> people to observe or control a users desktop.

But it's not transparent to the user, nor does it seem to be really integrated 
with rest of the environment.

> As it currently uses VNC it 
> would benefit from using the NX transport.  So lets get to the main
> differences in your proposal compared to the head of a group of people
> saying "lets all run a sharing client fullscreen in Desktop4 and I'll share
> out my computer" 1) On> e virtual screen in KDE becomes permanently? a 
> collaborative work area.

Not necessarily. The desktop wouldn't have any shared desktops by default. But 
if the user wants to, it could contain any number of shared desktops.

> The idea certainly has merit even if the name (foresight-Uugh)
> sucks.

It certainly better than Kshareddesktop ;). I think the name is suitable:

Fore·sight P   Pronunciation Key  (fôrst, fr-)
 n. 
1. Perception of the significance and nature of events before they have 
occurred.

2. Care in providing for the future; prudence. See Synonyms at prudence.
 
3.The act of looking forward.

Besides, the name wouldn't be something the user would see. And if some 
developers want to create this thing, he could use any name he sees fit. It's 
just easier to type "Foresight" than "shared, network-enabled 
virtual-desktop".

> The main problem is that the transport NX like VNC is not suitable 
> for peer-collaboration. They are both intrinsically host-client models.

It seems to me that NX and the like is client-host because each client has an 
individual screen with individual contents. In this case the screen would be 
shared. So the data could be sent from any client that has that screen, since 
the contents on all clients would be identical.

> Closer to the original concept where team members
> can drag apps to a common screen cannot be done with VNC or NX (although
> the host only of course can drag apps to the common screen) but it could be
> done probably even faster and  more efficiently simply by utilising the
> Xserver if we are only taling about linux/KDE machines. Remember that X
> allows for a program to run on machine A with its display on machine B and
> its keyboard coming from machine C.

I know. NX simply compresses the X-protocol so that it consumes less 
bandwidth. And bandwidth will become an issue if the users are distributed 
across the network/internet. NX also offers things like suspend and resume.
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