Sync with gnome releases

[Linas Vepstas]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 06:14:17PM -0700, Dave Peticolas was heard to remark:
> > I guess we're still on a separate page.  I envision gnucash as an ldap
> > server, and things like evolution would be the ldap client.   The details
> > of storing the data are up to gnucash, and not some distant server.
> > Why is this?
> > 
> > -- I want to associate specific address info with specific accounts.
> >    So I need to store at least one or more "cn=" with gnucash data.
> 
> It seems that ldap entries have uids -- why not associate in the
> other direction? 

1) Because I don't think you can trust LDAP servers, whether public,
   or privately administered.  Once you've set up gnucash account info,
   you don't want someone getting into your data and changing addresses
   on you.

2) Gnucash's ideas of what's important to store may differ from the 
   default templates on the LDAP server.  e.g. maybe we want to include
   the name of the account manager and thier phone number as part of the
   address data.  I'm not sure that ldap can really deal with this 
   kind of free-form, "kvp-frame" style data.

3) And if have to put the account manager's name in a kvp-frame, then
   where do we draw the line?

4) It makes queries hard. Imagine a report 'show me money owed to 
   everyone in chicago' (or zip code 60601).  You'd have to issue
   both LDAP and postgres queries, rank and sort and fold and spindle
   the results before displaying them. Yuck.

> I think it would be a mistake to make gnucash a
> an ldap server. Why should we reinvent openldap?

Who said reinvent? In your previous email, you yourself said 'we could 
add ldap support'.  I assume that meant coding to API's.

--linas


-- 
Linas Vepstas -- linas@gnumatic.com -- http://www.gnumatic.com/