gconf

Since a while, I've been using a version-controlled homedirectory. This is working quite well for me, except for one little detail: gconf creates conflicts all over the place. For some reason, the gnome people think it's a good idea to add an mtime attribute to every <entry>. As a result, I see many things like the following:

Index: .gconf/apps/evolution/mail/display/%gconf.xml
===================================================================
--- .gconf/apps/evolution/mail/display/%gconf.xml       (revision 112)
+++ .gconf/apps/evolution/mail/display/%gconf.xml       (working copy)
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
         </entry>
         <entry name="mark_seen_timeout" mtime="1099521834" type="int" value="100">
         </entry>
-        <entry name="paned_size" mtime="1100090373" type="int" value="144">
+        <entry name="paned_size" mtime="1100260105" type="int" value="144">
         </entry>
         <entry name="thread_list" mtime="1099521753" type="bool" value="true">
         </entry>

As you can see, the only thing that has changed is the mtime attribute. This happens all over the place; also, it apparently is the case that Gnome updates some timestamps at logon time. As a result, when I (1) log on at my laptop, (2) forget to log off (or forget to commit first), (3) log on at my desktop, I will always have a conflict.

This sucks. I wonder whether those mtime attributes are configurable in some way.