Original commit message from CVS:
This is a megapatch with the following changes:

- moved the gchar *name to GstObject, removed the ones in GstElement and
GstPad.
- moved the parent handling completely into GstObject. This cause *all* of
the plugins to fail (except those that used gst_pad_get_parent)
- rearanged the XML save handling.
- GstObject now has a class function save/restore_thyself.
- GstObject has a generic method gst_object_save_thyself, this makes it
possible to fire a signal wehever a new object is loaded. This is needed
so we can add XML save hooks.
- GstXML API has changed slightly. You now have to create a GstXML object
first before you can actually load something. This makes it possible to
attach a signal to GstXML whenever an object is loaded. I'm not sure we
will keep this interface.
- GstObject can now print the path_string without knowing about the GstPad and
GstElement types.
- Added gst_bin_get_by_name_recurse_up to lookup an element...