2008.04_Projects on the Move-an Up-to-Date Look at Free Software and Its Makers.pdf

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Projects on the Move - An up-to-date look at free software and its makers - Linux Magazine
An up-to-date look at free software and its makers
Projects on the Move
Accessing visible files in an "Open" dialog is a thing of the past now that application launchers like Gnome
Do help you launch the right program. We'll also check in with Wikia Search.
By Carsten Schnober
Kirill Zdorov, Fotolia
Who are Anders Carlsson, Mikael Hallendal, Michael Natterer, and Richard Hult? All four are programmers
who work for Imendio [1]. The Swedish software developers mainly work on contracts for designing open
source, and typically GTK-based, desktop applications. What do the Swedes do in winter when outdoor
activities are restricted to the brave or hardened? They stay indoors, keep warm, and read a good book.
These four programmers were also thinking about virtual desktops. On one cold weekend, they came up with
the idea for developing Gnome Launch Box [2], a piece of software that facilitates program launching. Apple
users will be familiar with the formerly proprietary role model Quicksilver [3] for Mac OS X.
Although Quicksilver's manufacturer Blacktree recently released it under a free license, no genuine attempts
to port Quicksilver to Linux have been forthcoming thus far. And if you take the current crop of solutions into
account, there is little incentive for doing so.
Gnome Launch Box and Quicksilver expect users to enter part of a program name or description, then the
software serves up and offers to launch any applications that fit the description. Although this may not sound
impressive, what's interesting is that the user can just type the name of a file residing somewhere on the disk.
Gnome Launch Box will then serve up a list of programs capable of opening the file type in question, and the
user can select an application, which Launch Box immediately triggers.
Do!
Development work on Gnome Launch Box made slow progress after that winter weekend almost two years
ago. Although bugs were fixed and the software slowly crept to version 0.4, the functionality of the program,
which was coded in C, has stayed pretty much the same.
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Then a US student, David Siegel, entered the picture. Inspired by Quicksilver and Gnome Launch Box, Siegel
launched a new project with a similar objective. Gnome Do [4] (Figure 1) closely resembles Launch Box
(Figure 2) with its two-panel window. The left pane shows a list of files, directories, email contacts, and -
thanks to the plugin structure - virtually arbitrary object types that match the search key.
Figure 1: Gnome Do finds objects of any kind and launches the matching action - starting programs, playing
multimedia files, or opening a new email window.
Figure 2: The Gnome Launch Box "Application Launcher" finds applications, files, and email contacts, as a
precursor to Gnome Do.
Gnome Do suggests actions that match the object it has found on the right. For example, if the user selects an
application, Gnome Do suggests launching it. As an alternative, it will open the Compose dialog in an email
program if the user selects a contact address stored in an Evolution address book, or it will offer to play a
multimedia file in a player with matching capabilities. Selecting Open with displays a third pane that gives
users access to an unrestricted selection of other programs.
Gnome Do's homepage explains that it is not just a search tool, but also an intelligent assistant. Even if users
don't know exactly what they are looking for or what they want to do when they find it, Gnome Do quickly
and conveniently guides them to a solution. And Gnome Do is not just an application launcher - it also offers
correct handling of web pages, email addresses, music tracks, and files that a user enters.
The third point - and the one that is most important to David Siegel - is portability. Although the program's
name, Gnome Do, clearly indicates the programmers' desktop preference, Gnome Do is not a Gnome-only
program, and it will work with KDE and other environments. Mono and the C# programming language - part
of Microsoft's Dotnet framework - are used, which illustrates Siegel's drive for platform independence
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(although ports to Windows or other systems are not currently on the roadmap).
The Gnome Do configuration file, ~/.do/FileItemSource.config , specifies which directories to index. The
recursion depth specifies how far down the filesystem tree the search engine should descend; a depth of -1
means no limits. ~/Documents: 3 thus tells Gnome Do to evaluate the $HOME/Documents folder down to
three subdirectory levels.
Like most free software projects, Gnome Do also thrives on voluntary contributions. To make life easier for
would-be contributors, the model is clearly documented [5] and outlines the program's role models -
Quicksilver and Gnome Launch Box - showing the ontology-based approach.
Gnome Do presents objects that are not simply dredged out of a flat database; rather, they are extracted from a
network of entities that are enmeshed in a knowledge presentation system.
This ontology-based design offers the advantage of future Gnome Do plugins that can add arbitrary object
types to the ontology and define properties for the new types. As previously mentioned, types could be files,
directories, multimedia files, or email addresses, and also Instant Messenger contacts, Web addresses and
maybe VoIP phone numbers. In line with this, much help is needed to create plugins for access to the Tracker
search engine, the Amarok music player, or Wikipedia search results.
Seek and Find?
Wikipedia project founder Jimmy Wales (Figure 3) withdrew from the online encyclopedia's daily business
some time ago and is now working on a community-driven search engine.
Figure 3: Jimmy Wales banks on the community. Although Wikipedia is a great success, Wikia Search has a
long way to go.
The long-anticipated Wikia Search [6] has now started alpha operations (Figure 4). Some time ago, the Wikia
homepage said: "Search is part of the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. And, it is currently broken."
The second part of is updated to read: "[...] and that it can and should therefore be done in an open, objective,
accountable way."
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Figure 4: Wikia Search only knows a fraction of the World Wide Web right now. In the long-term, the search
engine is looking to impress with the quality of its results.
As of this writing, Wikia Search is no competition for other search engines because it has only indexed a tiny
portion of the World Wide Web. The new search engine is looking to distinguish itself from competitors by
providing high-quality search results that are rated by users. To achieve this, it relies on mini-articles, short
texts that provide tips on frequently sought terms.
Right now, Wikia Search's major focus is on building up as big a collection of mini-articles as possible. Apart
from vital feedback in the form of bug reports, the operators are hoping for substantial community
contributions in this area. Mini-articles provide short definitions of search terms and, to point to ambiguities,
they also can contain images and references to related topics.
Quality rather than quantity - what Wikia Search is aiming to provide in its search results - may be the only
level at which Wikia Search will ever be able to compete with Google. Nobody is likely to catch up to the
market leader with respect to the sheer bulk of data collected in the near future; however, guiding users
through the data jungle is almost as important and is an area with room for improvement. Whether a
community-based approach can deliver the goods remains to be seen.
INFO
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