Re: GNOME Online Accounts 3.34 won't have documents support

[Debarshi Ray <rishi is lostca se>]

Hey Michael,

On Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 08:29:32PM -0500, Michael Terry wrote:
> I meant (1) keeping GNOME's API key valid, (2) maintaining
> libgdata, (3) maintaining the GVFS google backend (which only
> supports using GOA keys -- an app can't give it its own keys),
> and (4) maintaining the GOA google backend.

Ok.

Did anybody tell you that you need to contribute N patches a year to
libgdata, gnome-online-accounts and gvfs every year or you are out?
Honest question.

You're surely welcome to help, but I don't think it's ever been
mandatory. That'd be crazy.

The only thing I remember is trying to figure out why Deja Dup's
API calls were sometimes erroring out. Maybe somebody else gave
you some misinformation? I apologize if that's been the case.

> If GNOME lets their API key be revoked, all of the above will be
> dropped on the floor. Libgdata might live on independently, but
> GNOME wouldn't have a reason to put it into releases any more.
>
> ...
>
> (I assume you meant that deja-dup doesn't have much to worry about
> in the main context of this thread about Documents support etc being
> dropped from GNOME. And you're correct there. But Michael's comment
> about GNOME losing it's Google key in three weeks does have me spooked.)

As the primary maintainer of GNOME's Google API keys for the last
seven years, and the author of libgdata's Google Drive support, and a
co-author of the GVfs backend, I can assure you that GNOME won't just
"let their API key be revoked". :)

My understanding is that Google is still going through their list of
emails and sending out the notifications. I got my copy of their email
only yesterday. Michael Catanzaro and Philip Withnall got theirs some
days before that. I'd have had a better understanding of things by
now, but I am currently busy with desktop-devel-list duty.

Having to deal with the service providers is a part of life when we are
using their services.

For various unknown reasons, GNOME's Facebook API key had been flagged
multiple times over the past six or seven years. GNOME was twice
temporarily banned by Facebook, which was lifted once we answered
their questions and explained a few details.  It's possible that these
were temporary restrictions placed by some bot and not a human.

Twice we had to ask Google to increase GNOME's quota for two of their
API subsets. It needed an explanation of what GNOME is, how many users
we have, how we handle caching, etc. and Google gave us what we had
asked for.

Once we had to switch our Google key because a bug in
evolution-data-server had polluted the older key:
https://debarshiray.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/new-gnome-api-key-for-google-services/

I don't know how this present situation will be resolved, but we'll
see.  In the worse case, if Google does think that we are not meeting
their standards, then Deja Dup wouldn't be able to circumvent that
with a separate key on a sustained basis. If, hypothetically, Deja Dup
is the cause for GNOME loosing its access, then Google sooner or later
will catch up and shut it down one way or another.

Cheers,
Rishi