[Unison-hackers] appstream files, installing them, the 'app id' problem

[Greg Troxel]

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/pull/1127__;!!IBzWLUs!SsucGTvKbDdo4pBEYvV0Qt77v38WYCapxlXr-QLEf6HCPy1S8evpFzyo70zmVzCzcZod9V_PgikDgedS096sGy_s$ 

1) This file and the culture behind it seems to want to insist on a
reverse-domain-name-system type of identifier.  However, unison doesn't
have a domain, and unison doesn't have a mechanism to deal with
maintaining and paying for a domain.   Our presence on github is
temporary, and I don't want to encode github into an appid that is long
lasting, or even temporarily.

I don't understand if one we can resolve this.

What about `org.example.unison`?  Actually, just `unison` might be ok;
see the slightly better known `emacs`.

2) unison installs unison, unison-fsmonitor and unison-gui, in general.
Is that one appstream file for one program with 3 binaries, or 3
appstrema files?

3) As far as I can tell, appstream files are supposed to be installed,
even if they are also used in lists of programs that could be installed
but aren't.

$ ls -l /usr/pkg/share/metainfo/
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    2271 Jun 24  2024 emacs.metainfo.xml
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  201272 Jul 22 11:44 org.inkscape.Inkscape.appdata.xml
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   26608 Jul 22 18:05 org.kicad.kicad.metainfo.xml
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    5158 Jul 21 21:22 org.qgis.qgis.appdata.xml

I don't know if programs always install, install if asked, install if
the directory exists, or something else.


Any other insight?