In Gnome 2.20 it is possible that the keyring will be automatically opened on login. This is nice because it's not needed to give the password anymore when the network manager needs access to the keyring for protected wireless networks.
The new feature is also noted on http://www.gnome.org/start/2.20/notes/en/index.html#rnusers-password-management
As it is stated it needs some work in the distribution that it works and since I get a new prompt with a checkbox to automatically open the keyring if checked, I guess it really should work. At the moment checking the box doesn't seem to do anything and giving the password also doesn't seem to open the keyring because I get a second prompt which looks exactly as the prompts from earlier GNOME versions. After I input the password for the keyring in this "old" prompt the keyring is opened.
Would be nice if that feature would work.
Thank you for your bug. gdm does unlock the keyring on normal login, that doesn't work with autologin yet though. Do you use gdm? Do you use the autologin option?