Can you please add the ability to disable setting of the hostname in nm_system_set_hostname(), similar to how src/backends/NetworkManagerSuSE.c uses DHCLIENT_SET_HOSTNAME.
Feature requests need to go upstream, not to Gentoo. http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/
The upstream version of NetworkManager actually does what I require, ie. It does not modify the hostname. It is the patch added by Gentoo (networkmanager-updatedbackend.patch) which includes code to change the system hostname. It would be nice to have the option of disabling this feature.