Re: Common music database?

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 08:42:45PM +0200, Daniel Svensson wrote:
> Why do we need a shared (physically the same) medialibrary? Isn't the
> diffrences what makes some music players more powerful than others? To
> unify the media library would most likely lead to some music players
> getting less powerful than their current state unless they store

Since I started this thread.  Let me speak up on what I wanted when I
started this.  What I'm looking for is a common database so that when
I do want to switch, the and effort I went into setting up tags, 
and other meta data isn't lost when I switch.

Secondly, you're thinking that a single music player would address all
your needs.  Frankly I don't think it can.  There are too many use cases
for music players and a single monolithic application is not going to 
address everything.  So the idea is that you would use the player that
would work best with what you want to do.  For instance, you still want
your tags if you decide you want to stream your music to another computer
or to your stereo.  But Rhythmbox isn't meant to do that, but some
other app is.

I'm not saying that every bit of meta data has to go but there are some
base ones that should since they still apply.  For instance:

* ratings
* stats (how many times you've played this song)
* when was it added to the library
* user defined tags
* id3 tags
* album art (debatable, I don't think it's a good idea, but whatever)

I don't know about you, but I actually use several music players
depending on what I'm doing since I find that not all suits my needs.

Having these common makes switching easier when you want to switch.
Otherwise they keep you stuck on the same apps.  If you've tagged and
rated 10,000 songs you're not going to want to do that again.  Hence,
the need for a common music database so we don't have 10 different
implementations, and also it becomes part of the GNOME platform
making it easier to create new playeres with different emphasis.
At least that is what I'm thinking.

sri