[22:19] <lauri> if it's not available here, and likely won't be, within the next few months, that's going to have to be a no
[22:19] <FreeBSDMarcus> GNOME 2.14 is most likely going to need it to do things that already work without it.
[22:19] <FreeBSDMarcus> I may have to port it.
[22:20] <lauri> that's kind of the situation we're in
[22:20] <FreeBSDMarcus> Work had already been done on it, but the guy that did the work disappeared.
[22:20] <FreeBSDMarcus> I have his stuff, and will probably use that as a base.
[22:20] <FreeBSDMarcus> I'm just so bust right now with work and GNOME 2.12.
[22:20] <lauri> but I'm about to go to the KDE conference, and I need to make a report on tuesday what the situation is (and unfortunately, I don't know if we can even offer any useful help, it's all glibby and stuff)
[22:21] <sajd> heh
[22:21] <FreeBSDMarcus> That's not what needs work.
[22:21] <lauri> ok, we would not put a hard dependency on HAL (if ever) before KDE 4
[22:21] <lauri> that's not due out for ~10-12 months
[22:21] <FreeBSDMarcus> What needs to be done is write the code to read devinfo(3), sysctl, devd, etc.
[22:22] <lauri> here's the options I have:
[22:22] <lauri> 1) do simply a hal wrapper in KDE (I would design my own api, but the hal spec wouldn't be hidden, properties being named as is) (that's someone else saying that, not me specifically :)
[22:22] <lauri> 2) do a layer having frontend/backend and exposing something equivalent to the hal spec, writing a hal backend, and hoping that a freebsd backend would appear (that would be kde specific of course)
[22:22] <lauri> 3) do a layer having frontend/backend, hiding hal spec as much as possible, writing a hal backend, and hoping that freebsd backend would appear)
[22:23] <FreeBSDMarcus> I don't see HAL on any platform other than Linux beign what it is on Linux today.
[22:23] <lauri> obviously 1 is much the easiest, and 3 would mean we don't have to care, but it'd be a hugely bigger job
[22:24] <lauri> oh the pressure, not to mention the irony, you get to decide the future of KDE :)
[22:25] <lauri> (with the implication, if we don't support it, it might in fact lose any hope of becoming a real standard)
[22:25] <FreeBSDMarcus> I think effort should be put into making HAL work in its current form in some way on FreeBSD.
[22:25] <_Steve_> that would rock