Re: GNOME needs 'Datatypes lib' (Was: About metadata)

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

> You know, it is not a bad thing to have GNOME understand every file
> format, nor is it implausable. BeOS, like Amiga, has a flexible
> framework called "Datatypes", which has a set of intermediate formats,
> and a system for throwing a file in and having it automatigcally
> decode it into the "general" format with the appropriate plug-in
> converter. It works really well, and for the small problem space it
> serves (i.e. file formats, mostly things like images and sounds), it
> works incredibly well. People write their apps to be able to handle
> "generic images" and they can load and save in any supported format.

Absolutely.  One of the best things I have always liked about the Amiga is
to seamlessly be able to add new filetypes.   One of the reasons why Amiga
still manages to try to be as current as possible despite its current lack
of industry support.

	sri

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Sri Ramkrishna         /|\ Unix is very user friendly, its just very picky
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