Re: Metadata.

[Tim Moore <tmoore tembel org>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

> 
> So far the only reasonable proposal is from Tom Tromey.
> http://www.cygnus.com/~tromey/gnome/metadata.html
> 

[ snip ]

> 
> I personally would like to suggest a couple of changes to the API
> proposed by Tom.  And it is probably what I will implement for the
> gnome libraries.
> 

Just a thought:

Perhaps the metadata project should be separated from the GNOME project
and implemented separately. Then, in the future perhaps, GNOME could make
use of the metadata stuff without actually incorporating it into the
project.

Why?

* It's drawing focus away from other issues on the gnome-list. It's
  obvious that a good metadata solution is going to take a lot of time and
  effort to do well, so we shouldn't be holding up GNOME in the meantime.

* The idea of GNOME as a GUI/desktop environment is pretty well ingrained
  in the public mind now. Metadata, however, is generally useful, and
  works best if it's everywhere. So while a file server, for example, may
  not have a use for installing GNOME, it *should* have the metadata
  libraries. The metadata software could be a pretty standard part of an
  install, so tool makers, while not wanting to rely on metadata support,
  could optionally use it if it's available. If we separate it out from
  the bulk of GNOME, it may be easier to convince, say, the GNU file utils
  maintainers that an option to compile in metadata awareness is a good
  thing that lots of people would use. For a real world example, InfoZIP
  now has official support for saving and restoring attributes on BeOS. It
  wouldn't be a stretch to get them to include metadata support on UNIX
  (if available). The more tools that support it, the more useful it is.

* Aside from simply being aware of metadata and not losing it, think of
  command-line tools that could benefit from actually *using* metadata
  (e.g., a metadata savvy CVS client).

I think that by making metadata support *optional* (at least on non-GNOME
systems) and *independent* it could gain some momentum. 

Tim Moore