Proposed draft for the thumbnail D-Bus specification

[David Zeuthen]

On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 23:29 +0200, Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> I think URI-schemes for desktops is something the two teams should
> discuss, but not something we should cripple other specifications for
> (because there's no agreement).

Not to be rude, but I don't think you realize just how bad the current
situation is. First, we need to standardize on the encoding of URIs.
Second, we need the mechanisms consuming URIs and serving data (e.g.
gio/gvfs, kio, etc.) to use the same underlying connections (for cookies
etc.), same password stores etc. otherwise the user need to put in his
password again etc.

This means a) write a ton of specifications; then b) make everyone
support the spec both to the letter and in spirit. Oh, and then you need
to realize the world is bigger than gio/gvfs, kio and other popular user
space VFS systems you might get to support the tons of specs that aren't
written yet. For example mplayer "supports" smb:// but it doesn't do
authentication yet. Even if it did, the user would have to put in his
password again even though he'd already done that in, say, GNOME. I'm
sure there's other apps doing the same.

So if you think it's a good idea to just hand-wave about this and demand
that, say, the gio/gvfs and kio teams should (must!) "discuss" this you
are terrible naive and demanding. If I haven't made it clear already,
it's a ton of work for a group of people already overworked, and even if
we started today, we wouldn't have a working conforming implementations
in the next few years. That is, assuming the teams can reach an
agreement on all the specs that needs to be written. Heck, just getting
the bits on your desktop to use the same HTTP library (and cookies)
still isn't solved even though people have pointed out this issue for
years.

(That said, I do think it would be good to start work like this. But to
base new specs on this huge problem being solved already, is counter
productive and will not lead to anything usable.)

    David