Phonon 4.5 Supports Logging To Zeitgeist

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Phonon 4.5 Supports Logging To Zeitgeist

Phonon, the multimedia abstraction library known within the KDE and Qt worlds, has reached version 4.5. The major addition to Phonon 4.5.0 is Zeitgeist support...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTI1NA

[crazycheese]

This is the funny thing.
When such engine is opensource - people will question its usability for their case and then will either use it for productivity or disable it.

But if its implemented in proprietary closed source thing - immediately questions on spying and *logging will appear.

<happy mode>
I <3 foss!
</happy mode>

[TheBlackCat]

I've seen many open source users call open source logging software such as this "spyware".

[DanL]

I thought Phonon was getting replaced with QtMultimedia? I can't keep up with all of this anymore

[dacresbu]

audit(4)

I've seen many open source users call open source logging software such as this "spyware".

so is the audit framework also spyware?

[TheBlackCat]

so is the audit framework also spyware?

I don't consider them spyware, I was just pointing out that crazycheese's accusation of hypocrisy does not apply universally.

[TheBlackCat]

I thought Phonon was getting replaced with QtMultimedia? I can't keep up with all of this anymore

First, no it wasn't. There was a great deal of third-party speculation on this, and perhaps someone on the QtMultimedia side made some premature comments to this effect, but neither the phonon developers, the developers of software using phonon, nor most of the QtMultimedia developers claimed this. I am not sure how this idea got so popular considering there is almost zero actual evidence for the conclusion, and it has been repeatedly dismissed as incorrect by pretty much everyone involved.

Second, QtMultimedia is a Qt project, while Phonon is primarily a KDE project although it is incorporated into Qt. They were developed and still are developed by different groups with different goals and different priorities.

Third, Phonon needs to be supported at least for the lifetime of KDE 4. There is a backwards-compatibility guarantee.

Finally, they are aimed at different roles, with phonon intended to provide a simple and easy-to-use backend-independent wrapper for media players while QtMultimedia designed for two-way media support for smartphones.

Since QtMultimedia was developed by Nokia for the now-defunct Qt smartphone market and phonon was developed by KDE for the desktop market, if anything QtMultimedia is the one that is going to get the axe.

[crazycheese]

I don't consider them spyware, I was just pointing out that crazycheese's accusation of hypocrisy does not apply universally.

The problem is with black box, users don't mind giving their private data as long as it is crystal clear where its going to head. Little big difference.

[plonoma]

That's very interesting.
A project that's going to be used in both KDE and Gnome.

Maybe one day Desktop Environment stuff will land in Linux Standards Base.

[TheBlackCat]

There is already a standards body for dekstop stuff, freedesktop.org. The problem is that it is really asymetrical. KDE tends to be quick to implement freedesktop.org standards originating from Gnome, and when they implement a system they use freedesktop.org standards where ever possible.

On the other hand Gnome tends to be extremely resistant to implementing freedesktop.org standards originating from KDE. When they need something for which a freedesktop.org standard originating from KDE already exists they usually ignore the standard and implements their own, incompatible system.

While not a freedesktop.org standard, this is a good example of the problems. KDE adopts a Gnome technology (zeitgeist) with no complaints in order to encourage cross-desktop compatibility. However, under a similar situation Gnome develops its own entirely new system from scratch (tracker) instead of using the long-existing equivalent KDE system (nepomuk and strigi), hampering cross-desktop compatibility.