[hafqa] [hafqa] [Bug 2322] New: Incorrect D-Bus interface/namespace usage for org.freedesktop.Notifications extensions

[From: bugzilla-daemon at lists.maemo.org]

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2322

           Summary: Incorrect D-Bus interface/namespace usage for
                    org.freedesktop.Notifications extensions
           Product: System software
           Version: 4.0
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: Low
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: carlos at maemo.org
        ReportedBy: czr at iki.fi
         QAContact: hafqa at maemo.org


As there is no product category for "hildon_desktop_notification_manager",
posting as "general".

The following D-Bus members are implemented incorrectly with respect to proper
D-Bus namespace usage rules:
1) org.freedesktop.Notification.SystemNoteInfoprint
2) org.freedesktop.Notification.SystemNoteDialog

The Notifications D-Bus draft specification is available at:
http://www.galago-project.org/specs/notification/0.9/

The terminology/namespace rules (as they exist currently) are best described
at: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/IntroductionToDBus

--

Since these two extensions are not part of the spec, they shouldn't be:
a) Available at a public and open fdo-specified interface name
(org.freedesktop.Notifications):
- Since they're not documented at all
- Since they're only available on maemo
- They're not part of the spec
b) Be provided by a well-known name "org.freedesktop.Notifications", since this
violates the "unique name ownership" principle, which is based on reversed DNS
names and unless Nokia owns freedesktop.org, this is an issue.

Especially a) leads to the situation where user who will see these extensions
used/advertised via introspection/existing source code, and the user will go
searching for the fdo-spec, which in turn does not document these two
extensions (as it shouldn't).

Suggest (for 5.0?) to change this as follows:
1) Separate these extensions (and replicate CloseNotification member) to a
separate interface, for example: org.maemo.Notifications
2) Provide the extensions using a different well-known name from
org.freedesktop.Notifications, for example: org.maemo.Notifications
3) Use an object path suitable: /org/maemo/Notifications

Implementation-wise it still should be possible to utilize the same code for
both notification styles (fdo.Notify and the extensions), so this shouldn't be
an issue.

The other possibility would be to add these two extensions to the FDO spec (or
more likely, extend the spec to cover the uses that are now covered by the two
extensions).

If this issue will not be fixed, Nokia will be sending a signal that "it's ok
to implement whatever interface you like, in whatever way, without releasing
documentation and not caring about conventions". This includes implementing
maemo's own interfaces as well (although since they're not documented to start
with, maybe this isn't a large issue?).


-- 
Configure bugmail: https://bugs.maemo.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the QA contact for the bug, or are watching the QA contact.