GNOME plans/features requiring systemd
Sometime in the future
User instance of systemd for session management
There are two ways to do this - keep gnome-session almost entirely unchanged. Second, delete most of the gnome-session code (including XSMP/DBus API?).
Application sandboxing
Fallback path: Just don't sandbox?
Planned for 3.12
Upower 0.99
Upower 0.99 has removed the support for suspend/resume and hibernate. In various places where this was previously used, corresponding logind functionality is used: gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-control-center, gnome-shell, telepathy-mission-control, tracker
Log/event viewer that talks directly to journald
Fallback path: No log/event viewer, or keep gnome-system-log around
See Design/Apps/Logs
Planned for 3.8
Use systemd inhibitor api for lid-close handling
No easy fallback to ck/upower, the have no comparable api. Could have a separate power plugin for fallback
Affected modules: gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-shell
Session tracking
Centralize the session tracking code in gnome-session, expose it as a D-Bus property for other modules
Present in 3.6
Offline updates
The systemd dependency is confined to PackageKit - gnome-shell just looks for the presence of /var/lib/PackageKit/prepared-update
Showing systemd-specific information in gnome-system-monitor
Fallback: compile with --disable-systemd
Use the timedated D-Bus interface for setting time/date in gnome-control-center
Session tracking
We have code in various modules to talk to either systemd or ck for active session tracking: gnome-session, gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-shell