Bug 4560 – Open source dbus wrappers (libtime & statusbar-alarm-dev)

Bug 4560 - (int-117385) Open source dbus wrappers (libtime & statusbar-alarm-dev)

(int-117385)
Summary:	Open source dbus wrappers (libtime & statusbar-alarm-dev)

Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX

Product:	Licensing Change Requests
Component:	General
Version:	5.0-beta
Platform:	All Linux

Importance:	Unspecified normal with 2 votes (vote)
Target Milestone:	---
Assigned To:	Carsten Munk
QA Contact:	licensing-requests

URL:
Keywords:

Depends on:
Blocks:
	Show dependency tree

Reported:	2009-05-17 18:13 UTC by Carsten Munk
Modified:	2010-10-25 18:50 UTC (History)
CC List:	5 users (show)

See Also:

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Description Carsten Munk (reporter) maemo.org

2009-05-17 18:13:48 UTC

This is a bug report related to closed source dbus wrappers in Maemo and
reasons why these are harmful to the Maemo platform. There is similar previous
circumstances such as mce-dev. 

Cases:

libtime is a library, a dbus wrapper (as illustrated in
http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/alpha/clockd/). It is used in alarmd for
instance. The clockd part of this, the implementation of the DBUS server, is
understandably closed source - as it is a Nokia implementation with specifics
for HW access and GSM time updates. 

statusbar-alarm-dev is a simple API for setting numbers of alarms waiting to be
triggered, and is also a simple DBus API. The package does not depend on a
libstatusbar-alarm and is as such, just a DBus header file, for messaging a
(closed source) status bar item.

Alarmd is in turn used by Hildon Application Manager, an integral part of the
Hildon platform, which you would imagine would be adaptable by non-Maemo
distributions. Open sourcing libtime and statusbar-alarm-dev would encourage
standardization across Hildon-using platforms for these API. The DBUS server
for libtime & statusbar-alarm-dev would then be up to the individual adaptors
of the API to implement. It would also make it possible to compile open source
parts of Maemo without having to depend on nokia-binaries.

As another case, we can in the Mer project adapt the Fremantle beta alarmd, but
only with significant deltas to the source, which would be avoided if libtime
(not clockd) and statusbar-alarm-dev (not statusbar-alarm) was open sourced.

We believe it would aid adoption of the Maemo platform outside Maemo OS by
striving to having public DBus APIs when possible - it's up to the HW vendor to
differentiate the server portion as this is where the juicy implementation
details are laying. A developer has to know the APIs when developing anyway.
There are also potential licensing problems with GPL applications using these
nokia-binaries only APIs.

Comment 1 Andre Klapper maemo.org

2009-05-18 11:10:00 UTC

Carsten, isn't this already completely covered by the request to Open source
the alarm framework in bug 3635? If not, what are the missing pieces?
(Anyway, your arguments are great. Thanks for listing them here.)

Comment 2 Carsten Munk (reporter) maemo.org

2009-05-18 11:21:13 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> Carsten, isn't this already completely covered by the request to Open source
> the alarm framework in bug 3635? If not, what are the missing pieces?
> (Anyway, your arguments are great. Thanks for listing them here.)
> 
The core focus of the bug report is not specifically about alarm framework, but
it's used as an example of where dbus wrappers that are closed is harmful.

Alarm framework (alarmd, libalarm) was actually open sourced (and that's
fantastic!) but it depends on APIs that are closed source (the DBUS apis), so
it makes it difficult to maintain a cross-platform alarm framework without
significant deltas to the alarm framework which should be avoided to avoid
fragmentation between implementations.

Opening dbus APIs/wrappers makes it possible to seperate API for the client and
implementation of the server side part - and through that libtime, clockd, and
statusbar-alarm-dev, statusbar-alarm are decoupled, you get the ability to use
the alarm framework without having to have Nokia's (understandably closed
source) implementation of clockd and a statusbar alarm applet.

Comment 3 Andre Klapper maemo.org

2009-06-05 18:35:02 UTC

A statusbar-alarm-dbus-api package has been created internally and once it has
passed testing will be made available for public.

Comment 4 Andre Klapper maemo.org

2009-06-23 16:26:56 UTC

OK, a statusbar-alarm-dbus-api package has now been internally
created&verified.
It will create the statusbar-alarm-dev package.
The statusbar-alarm will build-depend on this newly created package.

Don't know if it will be automatically pushed to public? Soumya?


Keeping the bug open for libtime which has not been dealed with.

Comment 5 Soumya nokia

2009-06-23 17:09:29 UTC

There is an update for the SDK coming up next month. I was planning to release
it then. 
If it is needed immediately, please let me know.

Comment 6 David Greaves 2009-07-12 18:01:02 UTC

(In reply to comment #5)
> There is an update for the SDK coming up next month. I was planning to release
> it then. 
> If it is needed immediately, please let me know.

Hi Soumya
I am blocked as libtime source is needed for libtime-dev to build new alarmd
which is needed to build latest modest...

If you could provide libtime source that would help.

Comment 7 Soumya nokia

2009-07-13 10:31:02 UTC

(In reply to comment #6) 
> Hi Soumya
> I am blocked as libtime source is needed for libtime-dev to build new alarmd
> which is needed to build latest modest...
> 
> If you could provide libtime source that would help.
> 

Hi David, libtime is still waiting resolution internally. statusbar-alarm-dev
is the one that is separated from the closed source and made open.

Comment 8 Soumya nokia

2009-07-17 12:14:57 UTC

statusbar-alarm-dbus-api is the open source package in the beta2 SDK.

Comment 9 Andre Klapper maemo.org

2010-02-16 19:56:21 UTC

(Moving all Licensing Change Requests to a separate Product in Bugzilla.
Sorry for the bugmail noise)

Comment 10 Carsten Munk (reporter) maemo.org

2010-02-18 16:50:34 UTC

Temporarily setting this to priority unspecified while it gets evaluated.

Comment 11 Carsten Munk (reporter) maemo.org

2010-02-19 10:27:38 UTC

Bumped internal bug (int-117527) on this issue (libtime), will be assigning bug
to myself for tracking it.

Comment 12 Carsten Munk (reporter) maemo.org

2010-02-19 10:28:00 UTC

Taking it out of the queue as it is being processed..

Comment 13 Andre Klapper maemo.org

2010-06-17 13:13:43 UTC

WONTFIX according to Nokia.