what to do with wayland, python3, gdm3/systemd, ...

[Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>]

Hi,

Questions are how Debian Jessie packages should be packaged with regards
to configuration choices etc.:

 wayland support or not (I am skipping ones using libwayland-dev now)
 python3 support or not (Are we moving too?)
 X session autostart scripts under systemd

Here are the backgrounds:

The ibus and its family of packages, which I am involved, are highly
coupled to the international keyboard input under the GNOME3
environment. The newer GNOME3 integrated the management of ibus into its
Desktop settings dialogue.

I, as the ibus maintainer, tend to update ibus with almost the same
compile options and patches used for the latest Fedora packages to make
it behave well with GNOME3.  (But I am also careful not to disable
supports for other desktop environments, though it is becoming extremely
difficult.)  This is because Fedora is certainly the reference platform
of GNOME3 and upstream developers are the ones applying patches when
releasing to the Fedora and also we lack resources to do anything more.

Recently, Fedora (now 21 is the latest) has been building for wayland and
building Python packages with Python3. 

         fedora         rhel
wayland  20 or later    8 or later
python3  21 or later    8 or later

What is the schedule/plan for Debian to adopt these when upstream (i.e.,
Fedora) changes its default?  Should I enable them for Jessie?

Also, we have decided to use systemd as default init system.  Then my
question is how gdm3 and X session scripts are started from there?  Any
transition plan? ibus needs to have its daemon started for some
programs. (But not for GNOME3/KDE ones since they are usually supported
via library calls).  Currently, ibus is started by im-config hook script
in /etc/X11/Xsession.d.  (I maintain im-config too.) 

Recent default Ubuntu display manager under upstart seems to start some
part of X session autostart script from upstart.  So some of the startup
code used in /etc/X11/Xsession.d by Xsession was copied to upstart
configuration file by some Ubuntu maintainer.  Should I expect similar
action is needed for gdm3 under systemd?  What happens with other DE?  I
certainly need help on this.

Regards,

Osamu

Reference timeline:
 2013-09-25: GNOME 3.10 release
 2013-12-17: Fedora 20 = GNOME 3.11 + patches
 2014-03-21: GNOME 3.12 release
*2014-04-28: NOW! Jessie in testing with GNOME 3.10+3.12 mix
 2014-09-15: GNOME 3.13 Code freeze to be 3.14
 2014-10-14: Fedora 21 = GNOME 3.13? + patches
 2014-12-05: Jessie freeze GNOME 3.12 (some +3.13 mix?)