Consider removing dependency on perl
For SLE, we would like to remove the desktop dependency on Perl. This would make it possible to produce container images without needing to ship interpreters (I think that we also want to avoid replacing perl with a requirement on python). Xdg-screensaver has an embedded perl script to handle inhibition under GNOME. I see a few options here:
- Just replace the embedded perl script with a compiled program.
- Have xdg-screensaver look for an external program to handle inhibiting on GNOME. If it is found, then use it. Otherwise fall back to an embedded script. The binary would become a separate package.
- As above, but include the binary into xdg-screensaver, and compile it conditionally. But that begs the question of whether we should switch to meson, since we currently use autoconf, which doesn't support conditions without automake.
Also, I can't get the existing script to work on my system--I get a "no protocol specified" error--but could be a problem with my system, for all that I know.
Anyway, I thought it would be best to start a discussion before sending any patches.