Re: About metadata (long!)

[Christopher Curtis <ccurtis ee fit edu>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Ian Wells wrote:

You make valid arguments and have some good points, however:

> - if a file format has nowehere to put an 'attribute' such as a
> copyright message, a thumbnail, or whatever, it's not appropriate to
> put the attribute in the file.  Word 97 files allow thumbnails and

You realize that not only are you asking for GNOME to understand and be
able to interpret every single file format ever created, but you're also
obsolescing almost every format currently in existance.  You're also
saying that I'm completely screwed if I want to, say, make a HTML file.

> - you can encapsulate any file in another container file (tar, ar,
> multipart MIME) or whatever) if you really feel the need to add attributes.

That's not really a possiblity either.  What if I want to give an
attribute to my HTML file?  Or my syslog file?  What if I call all my
files *.html but some are HTML while some are PHP?

> - if you're really that bothered about all of this, you can make
> directories and treat them as files (Acorn RISCOS does this, at least

This doesn't work for the same reason as sticking it in a tar file.  Or do
you intend to rewrite procmail, apache, ad infinitium for GNOME
compliance?

> - if your idea doesn't work in the bounds of a normal Unix filesystem, 
> it's not good enough.  Adding anything to a Unix filesystem structure
> which doesn't need to be there is completely inappropriate.

Someone's not been paying attention.  Could somebody write for me a huge
200 page ASCII ART thing that says "Not required" or "Optional"?

> - if your file is on an NFS disk and modified/copied/renamed by
> someone else on another non-GNOME machine, it's still got to be right.

Someone else?  If you have a GNOME-aware NFS, it's not a problem.  If they
did it from a GNOME environment the GNOME attribute daemon would know, so
that's not a problem.  If you want someone to be able to move the file
without a GNOME tool and have your environment be unaffected, I would LOVE
to hear a reasonable proposition.

> This means that any additional database is no good, any
> filesystem-changing things aren't going to work, and anything which

Let's see ... we can't store it in a database, and we can't store it in
the filesystem.  Store it in memory?

> ... and anything
> requires a GNOME-specific file format had better be simple enough to
> deal with (translate to and from) on non-GNOME systems.  In the case

Has to be *seamless*.  The only option is to lose some or all metadata.
Transforming every single file into a GNOME format is *not* an option.

--
Christopher Curtis               - http://www.ee.fit.edu/users/ccurtis
                                 - System Administrator, Programmer
Melbourne, Florida  USA          - http://www.lp.org/