I really like the last ascii diagram here. I think it reflects more of the direction we were discussing at GUADEC. Assuming we take that direction (which I would agree with) I'd like to see a dbus interface into the [[online-desktop-engine]] which would become the (generic data model API).
-Calvin On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 15:42 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote: > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 22:27 -0700, Travis Reitter wrote: > > At GUADEC, a number of the people-centric software people (from Soylent, > > Banter, Empathy, Telepathy, Mugshot/Online Desktop) got together to > > discuss some issues around integrating our work. > > > > Here are some ideas for the short-term implementation, to get us rolling > > on integration. Many of these based on other peoples' ideas, but here's > > how I think it can all fit together. This isn't exhaustive, and mainly > > focuses on issues related to people-centric apps. > > I'm going to respond a little out of order here. First I want to point > out the things that I really agree with: > > > [...]. I think, and I believe we > > largely agreed in the discussion, that we care mainly about the use > > cases with intermittent network connectivity as opposed to use cases of > > rare network connectivity. If you rarely have an Internet connection, > > the Online Desktop won't be very interesting to you. > > Exactly ... we shouldn't think about synchronizing your machine's > addressbook with some other addressbook, we should think of it more like > IMAP where you may have some ability to do things offline, but it's > clear that you are editing the online copy. > > > As much as possible, I would like to avoid manual metadata entry. The > > social networking model works very well for this. That way, you fill out > > your own details once, mutually connect with people, and that's it. Each > > time your friends update their profiles, your address book is updated > > automatically. This substantially beats the old desktop equivalent, > > where you have to manually enter and synchronize your contacts' full > > profiles on each of your devices. > > This too - I don't think people interact with addressbook interfaces > much at all these days ... if you send email to somebody, your email > program remembers it. If someone you meet gives you their facebook > info, do you go and add it to an addressbook? No, you make a note > of it, and next time you are online, you go to facebook and add them > as a friend. Centering an interface around data entry for other people > doesn't make much sense. > > So, I think I agree a lot with the basic premises here. But when > I look at: > > > Basic Architecture > > ================== > > > > [Desktop People Apps] <-> [Empathy] <-> [e-d-s] <-> > > [Online desktop server] > > That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. What the Empathy block > here is doing here is merging together data from various sources; not > just e-d-s, but also Telepathy, Pidgin, or whatever. I see the > online-desktop-server as another of those sources. As such, is there > any reason to force it into the VCard mold? > > I imagine a model more like: > > [Desktop Apps] > | > [ Empathy ] > / / \ \ > / / \ \ > / / \ \ > [Telepathy] [e-d-s] [Facebook] [[online-desktop-engine]] > | > [online-desktop-server] > > (Utter and total ascii art failure...) > > Note that the online-desktop component is in fact privileged since it's > our primary source of information about how to do the merge and it's > also where "edits" of the merge (the user asserts that two people are > the same thing) get stored. > > You can then imagine that there is a simplified version in the case > where the user hasn't configured an online desktop server where e-d-s > takes on that privileged role. > > [Desktop Apps] > | > [Empathy] > / \ > / \ > / \ > [Telepathy] [[e-d-s]] > > But that doesn't mean to me that e-d-s and the online-desktop-engine > are the same thing... we just have a big switch for the merge engine > between the two modes. > > One open question my mind is whether the merging of people really should > be an separate entity, or whether it's just part of the > online-desktop-engine, so the picture: > > [Desktop Apps] > | > (generic data model API) > | > [[online-desktop-engine]] > / / \ \ > / / \ \ > / / \ \ > [Telepathy] [e-d-s] [Facebook] [online-desktop-server] > > So, that's my big picture of the situation: We don't try to wedge extra > functionality into e-d-s ... we just leave it as it currently is - a > VCard store. Then we build the new world of people with dynamic merging > using that as one more data source, as necessary. > > - Owen > > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
