Hi, all. I had a thought the other day and wanted to share:
What are the chances that the free software movers and shakers could successfully lobby CouchDB to be included in the Freedesktop.org system?
Consider DBus, which is a mandatory component of Linux (actually, Freedesktop) desktops, is now understood by all developers, leading to more and more apps talking to each other over DBus. I suggest that having a document DB built in to all Linux desktops would be true innovation for Linux development (especially since the GNOME pundits want to move to "web-aware" desktops).
If there is any chance in Hell that it could gain traction (I'm enthusiastic but skeptical--IMHO "Linux desktop innovation" is a myth, but I digress), I'd definitely volunteer to write code, as I have relevant experience. I'm thinking of two components:
1. Similar to DBus, you have one CouchDB process per user that runs when he logs on and exits when he logs out. (Maybe have a system-wide CouchDB too but I'm not sure if there is a need.)
2. (I'm surprised this doesn't exist already) A DBus CouchDB client API, so that nobody has to learn or use HTTP in their code, just the well-known DBus.
Given 1 and 2, any desktop app could just assume a private (for that user) DB in the same way they assume a per-user-session DBus bus today. So, in summary, I'm asking if it's desirable that modern distros bundle a document DB (Couch) for all apps to build from.
-- Jason Smith Proven Corporation Bangkok, Thailand http://www.proven-corporation.com
