Re: New module proposal: tracker

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 29/10/09 22:49, Sandy Armstrong wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki<patrys pld-linux org>  wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 10:51 PM, David Zeuthen<david fubar dk>  wrote:
> > > Not to sound like an asshole or anything but, I mean, didn't distros try
> > > including Tracker by default in previous releases? AFAIR, it didn't
> > > really work well. So if GNOME included Tracker in the next release and
> > > core parts of GNOME started depending on it in a way that couldn't be
> > > turned off... then distros would be in a lot of trouble if Tracker
> > > didn't work well. This would probably end up reflecting badly on the
> > > GNOME project.
> >
> > Are we talking about the tracker crawler or tracker itself (index and
> > metadata storage)?
> >
> > I can understand how including the crawler is not the best idea
> > (especially until we get ourselves recursive inotify support) but what
> > can go wrong with tracker itself?
>
> What can go wrong introducing a brand new barely-used technology and
> set of APIs as something we call "GNOME"?  I think that question
> answers itself. ;-)

I already said which applications use it. Tracker is not brand new and 
it is not barely used.

> I agree with David.  Tracker is exactly the sort of thing that should
> be able to be integrated in such a way that the integration is
> optional.

Well, actually it is. The crawler is one of 2 data miners that are 
included for free. They can be enabled or disabled. But it really 
doesn't make much sense in having the store without something to 
populate it in my view.

There are several ways of disabling the file system miner:

1. Don't give it any directories to index.
2. Disable the EnableMonitors config option.

> So the most pragmatic approach seems to be to wait until
> Tracker matures and people are using it in ways that make including it
> as part of the GNOME desktop an easy choice.  Right now, we're still
> at the "imagine the possibilities" stage with Tracker on the desktop.

Are we? Have you tried it yet?

> I'd rather wait until some compelling use cases are actually implemented.

What use cases would you like to see?

--
Regards,
Martyn