[Fwd: Re: GNOME and advanced search indexes viability]

["Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)" <amadorm usm edu ec>]

David Wheeler wrote:

> I have a few comments about the advanced search idea:
> * It'd be good if it could also support "searching through system
>   documentation" (e.g., man pages, info pages, etc.). 

Contemplated.  Perhaps not in the initial version, but a plug-in would 
be easy to write and subsequent releases might include them.  The thing 
is how to integrate those with the UI, remembering that the UI should 
show the user any kind of information, but bottom-line associative data 
is pathname.  That means that there has to be an application that's 
directly associated to man or info pages.  So that you double-click on a 
man page in your file manager OR search results window, and an 
application opens up.

> * It'd be good if it could be accessed as an (internal) web page,
>   and returned URL links that could be followed.  That way, it'd be
>   easy to integrate into different browsers, and queries could be
>   easily generated by application programs. 

We have it planned.  This can be done by remapping file:// paths to 
http:// paths, so long as the file is already shared by Apache or the 
installed Web server.  But I think that the biggest boon won't be a Web 
application to search files, but a *CMS* which queries the index for 
quick results instead of searching the files itself.  So I see CMS 
builders as piggybacking on our technology

> * It should support multiple document formats. 

Naturally.  The point of this is to drive consumer adoption and ISV support.

So what do you think?  Do you see potential customers for a corporate 
edition or mass adoption of the open-source edition possible?  What I 
keep racking my brains about is that I need a *real* customer which is 
willing to negotiate and buy or license the technology from us, for this 
to be a viable project (so I can assign real manpower, and project 
costs/timetables around it).

> --- David A. Wheeler
>     dwheeler ida org