Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest

["Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen" <mikkel kamstrup gmail com>]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:16:55 +0300, Quim Gil <quimgil gmail com> wrote:
> Thanks all for the quick answers!
>
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Jamie McCracken
> <jamie mccrack googlemail com> wrote:
> > I would prefer it if it was Desktop search and *Metadata* as the search
> > aspect is already well covered in Xesam but the use of a centralised
> > metadata is critical to having a well integrated desktop.
>
> The details are up to you guys. I have driven the idea until the point
> of proposing one broad topic and having some budget to cover it. I'm
> almost done.  ;)
>
> To tell you the truth, now I'm more worried about the finantial
> details. Once the hackfest is confirmed with a rough estimation of the
> budget I will be able to make decisions on other Maemo Summit related
> costs.
>
> You could agree on a broad idea about the mission and objectives. This
> would help the right people to decide to come. Then we know more or
> less how many people from which origins we have, and we can make a
> rough estimation (by Friday?)

Uh, this all sounds like a great idea! I am going on a two week
holiday this Tuesday (tomorrow) so I only have time to throw in my
loose thoughts tonight. Note that this is very much biased towards
Xesam in general (surprise!). Brain storm ahead:

 === Concrete Coding Tasks ===
 - Xesam integration in file chooser and Nautilus. Possibly use xesam-glib

 - Create language bindings for xesam-glib (specifically Vala, C#, and
Python) for xesam-glib and use these achieve

   * a deskbar module
   * a Gnome Do add-in

 - Create/draft a xesam-gtk library with widgets empowered by xesam-glib

 - Create a small server that exposes the Xesam search engine over
Avahi (probably over http). This is correlated with the second point
under BOFs.

=== BOF Sessions ===
 - There are several metadata-heavy technologies emerging. Soylent,
People, Online Desktop/Desktop Data Model, Xesam, and others. Can we
somehow work more together? They all appear to take slightly different
approaches.

 - Xesam over alternative protocols. Keywords: http/REST, Avahi,
Bluetooth, XMLRPC, Soap, Plain ol' socket.

 - How can we integrate pervasive searching capabilities in the
current Gnome desktop (ie. without changing the desktop interaction
model)

 - How can we create a whole new user interface based on metadata and
instant searches. Ie possibly breaking totally with the standard
interaction model of the desktop. One possible starting point:

    * I've been sketching a "do-what-I-think-desktop" a while back.
The basic premise is "the user should not need to even touch the
computer. It should just do the expected/desired in all circumstances
without user interaction". Then see how far we can go with statistical
analysis of historic user actions and rich metadata - and then accept
that we can not achieve the end goal, but still get as close as
possible.

 - A shared way to harvest metadata and register metadata extractors
or sources. This is also relevant for Xesam.

 - Discuss the Xesam Metadata Storage spec. It is slated to be
included in the post 1.0 release of Xesam, but there is very little
concrete written down or agreed upon. This can seriously use a lot of
discussion. It has ramifications into Soylent and desktop-data-model
as well, probably others too.

 - Gnome and Nepomuk? Hitherto Gnome and Nepomuk has not really been
related at all. Even though Xesam and Nepomuk has its disagreements we
are also trying to collaborate. Should Gnome do more, what steps would
be necessary to utilize Nepomuk technologies in Gnome?

 - Semantic Gnome?

 - Dashboard? Why has the idea that everybody loved never landed on
consumer desktops? How can we make it real. What technical solutions
do we need in place?

 - While it is pretty hype to talk about desktop search and even write
lots of code for it, why is it not more integrated in the desktop than
it is? A big reason is of course the quality of the search engine. I
can think of a lot of other reasons though (feel the teaser!).

=== Meta ===
 - It would be great to have RC3 of the Xesam Search spec ready at
least a week or two ahead of this. It is likely to contain some
(minor) API-breaks. Probably an updated xesam-glib to go with it too.

 - Given an updated Xesam spec it would be great to have all servers
updated to the latest spec and have easy-to-set-up trunks or branches.
The point is that a hack fest should not be spent with everybody
trying to set up a privately circulated branch of MyGreatSearchEngine.

=== Me ===
I would very much like to attend. It is likely that I can reserve
Sept. 19th+weekend if this is settled soonish. Bugger that I'm going
on a no-internet vacation just now when planing will start.

That was all I could conjure up tonight. Cheers,
Mikkel