Re: single conceptial data object realised

Hey Adam,

thanks for the reply.

It indeed does not have much to do with OGo. It was more of a philosophical
nature, regardless of implementation, but of course I am quite happy to
have heard your responses.

Let me just pull out snippets to reply to.

> I don't know what "Opera M2" is or how it has anything to do with what
> you propose.  But what you propose DOES exist in most desktop
> environments - Windows provides WAB,  GNOME provides E-D-S, and I'm
> pretty certain KDE provides one too (via Kontact backends I presume).
> Not that there aren't rough edges,  but current technology is pretty
> close to what you propose.
>
>> (...)
>
> And it exists.  Of course it is up to individual applications to support
> it,  but at least in GNOME and Windows most do.
>

Ok. I know it is more or less realised if you use an MS Exchange server for
example. However, I don't see Opera's mail client M2 interfacing really
well with Microsoft Outlook. I guess that that Evolution Data Server (thats
what you're referring to, right?) would provide such a thing as a central
repository for all kinds of 'personal' data....but would I be able to put
it online somewhere and use say may favorite client for email with that
repository? How 'standard' is it? Can I add a nonstandard tag and have it
be propagated to each and every client, because they know the modified DTD
or something like that? Can I add relationships between data (XPath?) and
browse from object to object, according to the diffent links I know for
that object? It's kinda like a web/ontology-like web of relations that I
would like to traverse in any direction, on top of a simple hierarchical
storage design. I'll check up on Beagle, it was mentioned to me before. And
I'll check up on WebDAV. What I want really is not really a personal
solution for me as fast as possible, but also just wanting to know what the
idea's are about this in 'the community' and how much of it is already
realised. It would be great if something like this would, perhaps in the
long run, become a real possibility for every home user.

And yes, I also believe that this is a desktop environment issue, but it
extends to providing access to it from wherever I could ever want access to
it. So it must become a virtual desktop. A collection, that is accessible
at any time from any place. Whether you would really want this, is a second
issue. But it is quite interesting to me, for now.

Greetings, Bart


>> Connectivity in such a way as to provide the user with a Dataset  
>> independent of realisation, location or even format! The dream of the  
>> single conceptual object called ¨my data¨ (which of course exists as a  
>> mental unity, as an aggregate object that I refer to as ¨my data¨) being
>>
>> realised in information systems so as to keep the unity of the concept  
>> intact. This means: in whatever format, in whatever place, by whatever  
>> means, I can gain access to it, and be presented with, e.g., ¨My Address
>>
>> Book¨ or ¨My Email¨, and from ¨My Email¨ I can see the relationship with
>>
>> ¨My Adress Book¨, whatever tool I use to access it. And I can place 
>> labels  on my individual emails, and those labels also then exist in ¨My 
>> Data¨ and  can be used by other applications, and I can add other 
>> associations,  metadata, whatever, and it morphs in such a way as to 
>> support it like an  immensely flexibel DTD, as flexible as the mind... 
>> ;). Cause what you´re  doing is supporting the mind, and the information 
>> system used should be as  flexible or as much like the mind as possible. 
>> Well, i´d like to hear any  of your thoughts on this subject, whether I 
>> should look at some other  source of information, or just your own puny 
>> little thoughts  (Muhah...silenced), all would be very much welcomed :).
>
> I'm confused what this has to do with OpenGroupware?  If an E-D-S plugin
> that connects to OpenGroupware exists then all the data available from
> OpenGroupware exists within the scope of all properly integrated GNOME
> applications.  Documents can be accessed via DAV (supported by
> gnome-vfs).  So what you are talking about is really a desktop
> environment issue,
>
> Have you looked at Beagle?  Perhaps that is what you are looking for.
>
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