what does the 'O' in GNOME stand for? (was RE: Re(2): GNOME Clipboard)

["Matthew Loper" <matthew loper org>]

> > I was thinking on starting coding a small GNOME Clipboard
> > utility. Is there somebody working on this? Is there something coded
> > in GNOME CVS to access the X clipboard?
>
> >What would the GNOME clipboard program do?
>
> Well, I was thinking on something similar to the Windows
> Clipboard Viewer or Xclipboard. Maybe adding some extra functionality...

why not have a (maybe inproc) gnome/corba object that encapsulates the
clipboard? anything like that developed so far? (IDataObject style)

...which brings me to a different question. what DOES the 'O' in gnome stand
for?

a. (o)bjects written in gtk+/gnome, that are exposed through language
bindings,

b. (o)bjects exposed through ORBit, that require the client & server to link
with gnome libraries, or

c. (o)bjects exposed through ORBit, that only require the client to only
'talk' CORBA (ie no need to link with gnome/gtk libraries), but of course
need the server to be programmed with GNOME (otherwise it's not really a
GNOME object :)?

I genuinely hope that it's a healthy portion of (c), for the following
reasons:

1. Being able to fire up a gnome object, and requiring only perhaps the .idl
files of the things you want as a client, seems like a great abstraction
model. Bindings to CORBA = bindings to gnome.

2. It would make the c++/c war a lot more moot. Want to write/use gnome
stuff in C++? fine, write/use corba/gnome superspeedy inproc components.

3. Exposing gnome objects to non gnome-friendly programs also seems
consistent with an 'open' model of development. In some ways, I'd really
like to see a component model for linux (a la COM), and GNOME seems to have
the best shot at this. I guess that won't really be possible until the ORBit
implementation repository works (which i don't think is ready yet? gnorba
for now?).

Of course, some UI-oriented stuff is sometimes best left non-componentized;
but sometimes not (activeX, object linking & embedding etc.).

Ideas?

Matthew@loper.org
http://loper.org/~mmlop