DBus for Generic Data Access Methods?

[Marcel Holtmann]

Hi Kalle,

> > You are still missing the big picture here. Every OpenMoko specific
> > interface is a step back. You will have OpenMoko specific things,
> > because that is unavoidable since some stuff depends on the actual
> > hardware and can't be generalized. For all other things you wanna go a
> > way that works on OpenMoko, Maemo, GNOME, KDE and other desktops.
> 
> Yes, true. But that's not to say that the current way is the best one.
> 
> It makes sense to define these things someplace. If you are aiming for
> 'a standard set', then define it.

actually this is the job of the subsystem to come up with a standard
set. But again path names mean nothing here. They are only strings.

For all the rest we have freedesktop.org.

> > The point is to talk to upstream projects and make them aware of the
> > needs and find a common solution that works on all platforms and is
> > sufficient for the current needs.
> 
> Yeah, true. This should be done someplace higher. And in a manner that
> can then be expanded someplace else with plugins.
> 
> In fact wouldn't that be nice to have a dbus service meeting place to
> which applications could publish their paths, and then other
> applications could browse through them.
> 
> this way it'd only take a small plugin to cover features in openmoko.
> 
> Of course this actually does not take away the problem of not-defined
> paths, as such. But these paths could define their features as well.

And again. D-Bus has introspection and while a defined path is a
convenience, it is not necessary. The well known bus name is what you do
need.

> Then again all ipc depends in pretty intricate knowledge of the other
> party, so the benefit of a 'service meeting place' is a questionable
> one. Unless there is a clear definition of the protocols used in the
> communication, of course. 

Actually D-Bus is a message bus with method calls and signals. So
basically it is only an API contract defined through the interfaces.

Regards

Marcel