Extended attributes, Linux and GNOME

["Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)" <amadorm usm edu ec>]

Lately, I've been warmly surprised by this:

http://acl.bestbits.at/

to save you a visit:


 What are Extended Attributes?

/Extended Attributes/ are arbitrary name/value pairs that are associated 
with files or directories. They can be used to store system objects 
(e.g., Capabilities of executables, Access Control Lists) and user 
objects (e.g., the character set or mime type of a file). Access Control 
Lists are implemented as extended system attributes.

This is a Good Thing (TM).  KDE and GNOME could begin using them to 
store metadata such as emblems and stuff.  AFAIU, the metadata machinery 
in both DEs can be extended to use EAs instead of XML files whenever EAs 
are available.  From the looks of it, it seems EAs will become a 
by-default standard feature.

Real searching files by a specific attribute and interoperability 
between KDE and GNOME at the file system attribute seem now possible.  
Instead of hauling .nautilus-metafile.xml and .directory files done by 
KDE and GNOME.

All that is left is to agree on a common set of EA names for both DEs 
and anyone who'd want to join.  I'm positive the POSIX utility fellows 
will at some point extend their tools to deal with EAs (I'm thinking tar 
and cpio here).  Our indexing project would, naturally, take advantage 
of such a feature and provide indexes for common attributes.

What do you think?

     luck