[Cosmo-dev] Sharing format questions

[Morgen Sagen]

On Jul 26, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Morgen Sagen wrote:

>
> On Jul 25, 2006, at 2:02 PM, Bobby Rullo wrote:
>
>>
>> I think user's should be able to modify read-only items somehow,  
>> so that changes appear only on their local machine and on their  
>> account (Scooby needs to see this stuff too)
>>
>> Once use case for this is alarms - I subscribe to a read-only  
>> schedule, and I want to set an alarm to remind me to go to a  
>> particular event. I can't though, cuz it's read-only. iCal  
>> actually has this problem, and it's annoyed me several times in  
>> the past.
>>
>> Also, people should be able to somehow move read-only stuff into  
>> other collections - I should be able to copy stuff from an Office  
>> Address-book into my own address-book for instance. Maybe this  
>> means that the item is copied instead of moved, giving it a new  
>> UID, with some meta-data that points to the original object.
>
> Another approach to this would be to let people publish whatever  
> they want to their slice of the soup (hmm, analogy mismatch).  Then  
> it's up to the user to pick and choose whose annotations they  
> "trust", and subscribe to them.  In other words, if I publish an  
> item to my cosmo directory, you could publish an annotation about  
> that item to your own cosmo directory regardless of whether I gave  
> you write access to that item.  It is then up to me whether I want  
> to incorporate your annotations into my repository.

I've always wanted us to be able to think of items as something akin  
to a Photoshop image:  composed of a set of "layers" which can be  
added or removed independently.  Each layer would represent one or  
more related attributes plus their values.  For example, one layer  
could include the "when-ness" of an event (start time, duration,  
recurrence), another could include reminder alarms, and another the  
title.  The user will want all of those layers published to Cosmo so  
that all their own clients (Chandler, Scooby, etc.) will have  
access.  They will also want to give controlled access of these  
layers to other Principals (accounts/groups/tickets).  Likewise, the  
other Principals are going to want to pick and choose which layers  
they want to see (you may have given me access to your reminder  
alarms, but I don't want to download them).  And going back to the  
"setting personal reminder alarms on items I don't have write-access  
to" requirement -- we would need to be able to store these layers  
somewhere on Cosmo even if the Principal doesn't have permission to  
modify the item itself.

A long time ago I described these layers as "records", with multiple  
records being composited into an item:

    http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/chandler-dev/2002- 
November/000181.html

Could Cosmo provide storage and access to something like this?