[Fingerforce-devel] Fwd: Squeeze, fprint and fprintd

[Dererk]

A concerned user about fprint software and Debian drop me his doubts and
questions, I'm forwarding them here (with users' consent) so anyone else
out there sharing the same concerns could find an answer.


Greetings,

Dererk

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: fprintd
Date: 	Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:01:51 -0300



On 19/08/10 18:20, Pietro xxxxxxx wrote:
> This:
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fingerforce-devel/2010-August/000323.html
> is very sad news for me, both as a Debian user with a fingerprint reader
> and as a Debian contributor which doesn't like to see it lagging behind
> other distributions in terms of functionality
>   
[snip]
> Before reading your message, I was dreaming of fprintd in Debian...
> since Fedora has it since years, it is certainly tested.
>   
Hi Pietro!

I would like to clarify what will be happening and what this decision
has influence in.

Basically, the decision is based on the matureness/activity on the
project under the eyes of a stable release  such quality and robustness
as Debian uses to bring on every cycle.
This doesn't mean *at all* that we will not keep working and continue
caring about the fprint software, we are just putting on the balance
what an stable release must accomplish as a requirement in terms of
security and robustness, and even though I'm really sad too about having
to take this decision, we think and hope its in our users' best.

Once again, users interested on using this software on the next stable
release will  have to fetch them from either backports (that we would
provide very soon), or unstable/testing (after being released).

In what respects to the fprintd implementation on Debian, there are some
bulletpoints to take into account:
- I've read many many times saying that either the libfprint part or the
dbus part (fprintd) were between them both API-unstable and
backward-uncompatible by that time (maybe that changed over the last
year, dunno really)
- Main goal on having a software in the archive is to have some users or
a set of software that requires it to run actively out there. Currently,
and I hope I'm completely wrong on this, I've just saw only one piece of
software that users fprintd and it's not DFSG-compatible nor binary
distributable.
- Fedora's  fprintd packager/maintainer is the same fprintd upstream.
That's really awesome, as the quality of the software should be
remarkable, but it doesn't really speak after the stability nor the
matureness by itself.

We will for sure introduce it and hope we could work together with
Fedora's folks on having it running on a good shape, but right now it
doesn't appear to be a priority.


------------------------------------------------

On 20/08/10 10:15, Pietro xxxxxx wrote:

> > Just for curiosity, what is the non DFSG-compatible piece of software
> > which uses fprintd? As far as I know, the dbus service is used in Fedora
> > by the "Screensaver preferences" dialog, which integrates (again, I'm
> > speaking for what I was told, not for what I personally tested) the
> > possibility of enabling fingerprint authentication and enrolling
> > fingers. (and I imagine this is DFSG-compatible, though maybe not
> > available as released software)
> >   
>   
Oh, great typo, I meant to say "uses" not "users". Sorry for the
confusion. The only piece of software I know uses fprintd uses a UPEK©'s
binary blob undistributable for Debian under their license. And of
course, if there exists more software out there that is using it, it
changes a lot this statement and I'll be *very* interesting in resuming
this task. Please let me know it if you came across any!
> > By the way: I dream of fprintd in Debian simply because it enables - at
> > least, that's what was told me on fprint mailing list - fingerprint
> > authentication at wakeup from standby, which is currently impossible in
> > Debian (if I recall correctly, because of an issue with permissions
> > needed).
> >   
>   
I would be really interested in solving this issue up, do you have any
information around that I can start with?
> > thanks again
> >   
>   
On the other way round, thank you for caring and letting me know your
concerns about fprint and Debian, your input is very appreciate!
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