Re: An idea for the appdb

[Tim Schwartz]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:58 AM,   wrote:
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> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:57:48 +1100
> From: Ben Klein 
> Subject: Re: An idea for the appdb
> To: Luke Benstead 
> Cc: Wine Devel 
> Message-ID:
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> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
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> 2009/2/11 Luke Benstead :
> > 2009/2/11 Ben Klein :
> > > 2009/2/11 Luke Benstead :
> > > > My idea is that the appdb should allow for people to associate a list
> > > > of checksums with an application version. For example, WoW might have
> > > > the checksum for the setup program and the game's executable,
> > > > associated with the appdb entry. The other extension to the appdb
> > > > would be to allow a way to programmatically retrieve information on an
> > > > application's rating etc. by going to a certain address (e.g.
> > > > http://appdb.winehq.org/getAppInfoFromChecksum.php?checksum=ac2b3f5928cba...)
> > > > which would return the info in XML or some other format.
> > >
> > > You've clearly put quite some thought into this, which is highly
> > > commendable. However, I would personally be against such a move, as it
> > > would put a lot of extra load on AppDB (in terms of network
> > > bandwidth). I'm also not too keen about something that retrieves data
> > > from the net every time you run an app. It's too easy for people to
> > > mistake it for spyware.
> >
> > Hmm.. I see your point. However would it really use that much
> > bandwidth? I mean, any sane implementation of the functionality I
> > described would only display the dialog the first time that
> > application was used. Retrieving a tiny xml file is surely less
> > bandwidth than browsing the appdb for the application (granted it will
> > happen more often than people browsing the site but I still don't
> > think it's masses of bandwidth). I can also see what you mean about
> > spyware, but other apps retrieve stuff from the web if there is a
> > connection (CDDB, and album covers are two examples).
>
> A request to AppDB would be at least once per user, application
> version and Wine version combination. Given the number of people using
> Wine, this would almost certainly be a massive load increase on AppDB,
> it would repeat roughly every 2 weeks (when new releases come out),
> and possibly even bring AppDB down as a worst-case scenario.

What about packaging the latest appdb information with each release?

Tim Schwartz
Sanity Internet
[e-mail]