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===Introduction to D-Bus:===
Currently on the Linux desktop, there is a void in desktop application integration. Many solutions are used such as CORBA, DCOP, etc…, but neither satisfies the new vision for an integrated Linux desktop.
D-Bus is relatively new; however, it has grown in popularity very quickly. The KDE project has announced it will replace DCOP with D-BUS in KDE version 4. Gnome has also made developments to include the D-Bus technology. Many corporations including Redhat and Novell are interested in this new technology.
D-Bus is meant to replace CORBA and DCOP, and provides a RPC communication technology. It is developed in the C language as an IPC process, but has high level language bindings for C++, QT, Java, Python, etc… Most Linux distributions already include a running D-Bus library. There is also a D-Bus port for Windows under development.
===Possible Ideas===
D-Bus can be integrated in two ways. One is to add a patch in code to use D-Bus functions that might be relative. Mozilla already has a patch that allows notifications regarding Network Connectivity. The other is to add some framework that allows applications to communicate with each other or with the system.
There is currently a project called DBuzzilla which has done a good job implementing a module which allows communication between applications and the system. The author has mentioned he had some personal issues, and has not touched the project since the summer of 2006. He said he will continue to maintain his project.
There are some problems with the previous project. It is maintained by one person, with some or none users. It is not complete, but is a good start. If this project is to be continued and maintained by Seneca students, it is probably better to fork or start a new that is updated to the latest version of D-Bus. It is unclear if the author of DBuzilla is willing to work in an open development manner.
===Important Links===
*http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7744.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-BUS
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312793 Support DBUS and listen to NetworkManager events]
*[http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/book/cxc/ Creating XPCOM Components]
*[http://developer.gnome.org/ Gnome Developers]
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCOP KDE DCOP]
*[http://books.mozdev.org/html/mozilla-chp-8.html Creating Applications with Mozilla]
