Google Analytics says I’ve recently been getting some hits from Google with keywords “gldm login”. GLDM is my login manager which I left in a half-finished state last year; it’s free/libre/opensource software and can be picked up at http://sf.net/projects/gldm/. If you’d like to help, talk to me at gldm+blogpost@vucica.net.

What is GLDM?

Idea behind GLDM was to provide a solid backend for authentication with a well-designed API for dropping in custom-developed graphical themes. That is, the idea was that GLDM would be the backend (with some nice themes/theming engines coming with it), but that people would easily be able to develop their own theming engines. It’s supposed to be an alternative to XDM, GDM and KDM — that is, it’s a login screen for Linux.

Its target is a home user; thus, GLDM does not care for and does not suppot stuff like XDMCP. It’s also probably a little bit less secure, until someone security-conscious comes around and fixes that.

Acronym stands for Graphical Liberty Display Manager, to say that one is able to create the GUI with whatever technique that person wants, as long as it’s somewhat pluggable into the C++ code. It’s also a play on OpenGL Display Manager, but since I didn’t code a single theme that uses OpenGL, it would be a bit of a misnomer, especially since it was intended that you really don’t need to have anything to do with OpenGL.

At the same time, you could; one might design a beautiful 3D island, with ocean having reflection, refraction and other cool shader-based effects. Then, on top of that, adding flying letters or user icons during login, which are reflected in the water below.

In essence, GLDM should be a “Compiz for the login screen”!

Almost all “common home users” would love that; it might help convert people to GNU/Linux, or other UNIX based systems. Who knows — perhaps even Canonical would take GLDM as the default login manager. (Oh, human dream…)

So what if you are getting hits? What do we care?

It surprises me that this unfinished piece of software is getting my poor little blog some hits. It surprises me that it’s getting hits straight from Google. It surprises me that this is happening despite absolutely no chatter on the interwebs about this software. It surprises me that I’ve received no inquiries about it.

It confuses me about what I should do next: should I go back to developing GLDM a little bit (a bit troublesome since I’m a Mac user now)? Will interest go up? Is this perhaps just a Google having a glitch, a cough, giving me hope where there is none?

I’m really not sure. Well, I think it GLDM might still be resumed; there still isn’t a “Compiz for the login screen”, and the barrier to entry for potential theme developers might still be significant. GLDM could be the solution by offering simple, simple API for authentication, while allowing the developer to just plug in their existing code into GLDM to get authentication services.

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via blog.vucica.net