[Portland] Proposal - desktop-integration-utils

[Bastian, Waldo]

>On Tuesday 14 March 2006 20:46, Jeremy White wrote:
>> I would like to propose that we take Kevin's work, add
>> a few more scripts, and publish it to the world.
>>
>> I think we should publish it on www.freedesktop.org
>> as a package called 'desktop-integration-utils'
>> (in parallel with desktop-file-utils).
>
>Referring to one of our other mails about namespacing:
>It might be better to use a different prefix than "xdg-" so there is a
>difference between scripts that work on freedesktop.org specifictions
or
>"standards" and scripts that unify access to tools provided by the DEs.

The tools that unify access would become specifications (I believe
"industry standards" is the right word here) in their own right. I don't
see the point in making a naming distinction here.

>Should a specification arrive for one of the problems solved by the
>scripts,
>it can be implemented in program with "xdg-" prefix without requiring
full
>parameter compatability.

I don't see anything wrong with requiring parameter compatibility.

>The wrapper script can then just handle this new tools in one of its
cases
>and slowly deprecate the others.

In order to wrap it you already need a high level of parameter
compatibility.

>> In addition to the utilities already written, we
>> should write shells for the remaining items
>> on the short term integration tasks.
>>
>> It should be released under a license such that anyone
>> can use it in any way they like (ISVs, distros, etc).
>
>Since they are external executables, would ISVs find a GPL like licence
>stil too restrictive?

I think it's ok for the binaries but I would release the scripts under
something BSD like. The GPL tends to trigger more internal bureaucracy.

Cheers,
Waldo