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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Moving away from app-centric mimetypes (e.g. kword)
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy () mikka ! net ! au>
Date:       2002-05-15 0:15:41
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Not pointing the finger, but various people have suggested that its 
easy to add metadata to XML-based files such as kword documents. This 
is true, but it misses the point of metadata:


It should be applicable to any file, regardless of file format. It 
should be totally independent of the application used to generate it, 
or view it. It should be transparent to apps that don't understand it, 
but those apps should not break the link between data and metadata.


This is why, ultimately, no metadata system without kernel support can 
ever be complete.

This is not to suggest that partial solutions aren't helpful. Koffice 
files already include metadata such as Author, and MS Word includes 
much more extensive metadata. It may be very useful for Konqueror to 
have support for Koffice metadata, and I don't intend to dismiss that 
idea at all.

*But* there are lots of things that you can do with metadata on the 
file level, that you may want to do to non-XML files such as text, 
source code, jpeg, etc etc etc. For instance, you might want to 
associate a general purpose Comment metadata field to *any* file. And a 
generic metadata system should allow users to create and use their own 
metadata fields, and not just be limited to the ones the app developer 
thinks you need.

Again, I stress that without kernel support, any solution to this 
problem will be a hack. It may break as soon as you move the file using 
non-KDE methods. But so long as metadata is only inessential (but 
useful) data, and so long as people understand the limitations, I still 
think its worthwhile.

To my way of thinking, metadata is a USEFUL thing, not an ESSENTIAL 
thing. So if we have to go through one or two less-than-perfect 
inelegant hacks in order to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept 
enough to get the kernel support needed for a perfect implementation, 
then so be it.

Am I off-case here? If what I say is unreasonable, I'd like to hear 
your feed-back.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano

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