Re: Proposing libgdata as a new desktop module

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

Luis Villa wrote:
> * if it isn't going to spread beyond google (or we have no reason to
> believe so, at any rate) is there a reason to think that google is
> special/important enough that we should compromise our values here? Is
> there a good tactical reason for it? (I'd say that this, roughly, is
> our relationship to SMB.) (There may be; I'm open to that possibility
> but don't see it argued for yet.)
> 
> * alternately, are there ways to make this more general and support
> alternatives? In other words, should this be a general purpose
> web-data library (perhaps an atompub library?) in which gdata is but
> one mode? Should it be integrated with some other, pre-existing
> network connection or data protocol library?

I see this as similar to the progression of Pidgin (back when it was
called gaim) from a proprietary protocol based application only to
abstracting basic IM functionality away from the back-end and adding
many other protocol back-ends, both Free and proprietary.

Perhaps libgdata will end up forming part of a different library that
supports other protocols, perhaps it will grow to support other
protocols itself over time. I'd be very hesitant to insist on
engineering abstraction too early into the lib though.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org