Re: Katabase and libgda (from gnome-db)

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo linuxave net>]

> the ven, 08 set 2000, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> > Hi all!
> >
> > I'm the maintainer of the gnome-db project
> > (http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-db) and
> > would like to tell you about an idea I had the other day when I had a
> > look at the koffice source code (it was 1.93 I think).
> >
> > The fact is that the katabase directory from the sources I had was
> > almost empty, so I thought that maybe you'd like to use the libgda
> > library for the database access part.
> >
> > libgda has been separated recently from gnome-db to allow non-GNOME
> > applications to use it (so, GNOME-DB is now the GNOME frontend to
> > libgda). It defines a set of CORBA IDL interfaces, as generic as
> > possible to be able to use them in any DBMS (or even non-DBMS data
> > sources, such as LDAP servers, XML files, etc). For each different data
> > source supported (PostgreSQL, MySQL, oracle, etc), a CORBA server
> > implementing those interfaces is provided.
> >
> > It still depends on GNOME, but we are eliminating the few dependencies
> > that still are there, so probably, by the end of this year (or sooner I
> > think), it will be totally GNOME-independent. The only things that it
> > will depend on are glib, ORBit, libxml and OAF.
> >
> > It now supports PostgreSQL, ODBC, MySQL and Oracle, and sybase, LDAP,
> > mail and interbase are in development.
> >
> > We (GNOME-DB team) accept any suggestion, pacth, etc from anyone, so we
> > may work together to cover the needs of both projects (and other
> > projects that are starting to use it, such as the GNUe
> > (http://www.gnue.org)). Thus, we'll help a little bit in the cooperation
> > between the GNOME and KDE projects, specially after all the controversy
> > talked about in the last weeks, which IMO, does not exist in GNOME/KDE
> > developers minds.
> >
> > so, what do you think?
> 
> Hi, 
> I've just seen your email on Koffice list.
> I'm the author of a KDE specific database library that has been just 
> announced on the Koffice-devel list (if you are interested in the thing, look 
> at http://www.thekompany.com/projects/kdb for details).
> 
> I think interoperability with the gnome-db engine can be a good thing, but 
> using CORBA in a KDE environment can be a bit difficult. One idea I have is 
> that we can join our efforts to write a plugin for the KDB library that will 
> act as a 'bridge' between the two worlds. This way, KDE can have a dedicated 
> lightweight database library that can also exploit the power of gnome-db as 
> an option, thus not forcing KDE users to run an ORB just for a small database 
> app.
> 
But ORBit is very lightweight, so why can't you use it?

> Please contact me if you are interested in this kind of collaboration.
> 
I've downloaded your code, and looking at it, I realize that you're
doing the same thing gnome-db (well, libgda) tries to address. In fact,
the initial versions of gnome-db were using just shared libs for the
different plugins. But then, we switched to CORBA.

So, I think it's a pity not to have some code shared between the two
projects. But, anyway, I think the best to do is to add a plugin to KDB
using libgda, so that you can access any DBMS available to libgda.

Anyone (on gnome-db-list) wants to do this? or on koffice-list? I've got
no time myself to do it, but if nobody does it, I'll take it as soon as
I've got a little time.

cheers