#24 libxklavier incorrectly uses XKB library libxkbfile

[Brian Cameron]

Just so this bug does not get lost, I wanted to make
sure a reference to this bug is captured in the
libxklavier bug tracking system.

Refer to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152105
to see a lengthy discourse on this topic. The main
issue is as follows:

Please describe the problem:
The libxklavier library that the control center depends
on for keyboard i18n support is not designed correctly.
To allow configuration/selection of multiple keyboard
languages (the X11 keyboard layout) in GNOME,
libxklavier is using non-portable 'private' functions
in the libxkbfile library. By using these private
functions,
libxklavier accesses raw XKB configuration files only
intended for the X server and specific clients (e.g.
xkbcomp). Since X11 is a distributed environment, the
X server may not run on the client host therefore files
present on the host that control-center is running may
not be present on the X host (leading to inconsistencies)
.

The XKB extension requires that the XKB protocol be
used when querying keyboard layouts and setting
keyboard state (using libX11 XKB functions). The
current implementation works by 'accident' with X servers
derived from XFree86, but should be corrected in
general since it conflicts with the X11 client/server
model.

This problem has been characterized as a server bug
with GNOME bugzilla id 137438 (the control-center
won't start), but that does not appear to be the case.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Using a non-XFree86/Xorg based server, start the
most recent version of control-center.
2. Control center will complain about a missing
property (XKB_RULES_NAMES) and fail to start.

Ref: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137438