Late Hit: Gnome-Screensaver

[Brian Kemp]

I've been lurking on this list for a while, and I've been watching
this unfold.  I have only this to say:

All of the gnome-screensaver improvements such as executing on laptop
close, use of dbus...these are excellent!  They are much-needed, and
it's a grand improvement to GNOME, Ubuntu and upstream (read: Debian)
to have these in place.

With regard to the gnome-screensaver configuration button (or lack
thereof), I really think one needs to be there.  Dana said something
kinda off the cuff that really caught my attention: "I guess I'll
switch to kubuntu" (or something to that effect)

That's what finally clicked--I think many users will not use
gnome-screensaver, precisely due to the lack of the configuration
option.  (Sorry to single you out, Dana)

That means all of the hard work that went into making
gnome-screensaver great will be wasted, because fewer people are
willing to use it.  It won't do what they want.  I would prefer to
have both.

I work at a place where we design custom software.  I came into Ubuntu
as a way to make programming and computing more interesting (plus, I'd
rather be writing FLOSS).  I'm just some punk kid...but I do know that
if you give your users choice, it makes them a lot happier.  It can be
a real pain sometimes, but it's much appreciated.

I understand GNOME is FLOSS and anyone can theoretically rectify the
situation, but I understand slightly more than nothing about how to do
C/C++ programming as it relates to GTK.

If anyone starts coding it, contact me off-list and I'll bug test for
you, or help in the effort any way I can.  (I think I'm gonna go to
MOTU and get off this list--you all are a bit above me in terms of
actually being able to help code-wise.)

If someone wants to start a wiki page for all of this, just point me there.

--BK

Another option is to fix the screensavers to make them get on the
dbus.  I hear the fare isn't too expensive.