Comment 174 for bug 36812

(In reply to comment #112)
> I believe the most serious objection with this request is that it violates
> the XKB specification (see the description of SA_LockGroup in section 6.3 of
> "The X Keyboard Extension: Protocol Specification").
>
> In the same specification, in section 4.0 of appendix D ("Protocol
> Encoding"), we see in the description of SA_LockGroup that there are still 5
> unused bits in the flags field. My proposal in to use one of these bits
> decide whether to lock groups on press or release. By default (bit is
> zero), lock groups on press as the protocol specification demands. If the
> flag is one, lock groups on release. So by default, we would conform to the
> specification, and add the alternative behaviour as a new possibility beyond
> the specification.
>
> There are some usage implications. One must use 'Private' do create actions
> with the new flag set (until xkbcomp is updated as well), and one needs
> support in xkeyboard-config to make the new feature usable for
> non-XKB-hackers.

Thanks Andreas, your answer pretty much clarifies everything for me!

Your proposal is very correct, no doubt. Does it mean that once your proposal is implemented all 3rd-party keyboard switchers (like those in Gnome and KDE) would have to be updated to make use of this new possibility?

Anyway, as i see it, there are two ways to go:
1) The long way - making things right and according to specification. This would take from very long to forever (this is the way we've been going for the last 8 years with this bug report).
2) Take a short way - let the common sense win over specification and make everybody happy.