Evolution Data Server...

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 09:36 -0700, Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>     So this isn't a strictly development question, but based on the 
> answer it very well could be. I don't use evolution, but the 
> evolution-data-server is running. Is it used for anything else? If not, 
> perhaps it would be good to not run it as part of the gnome session when 
> the users default mail client isn't evolution. If it is used for other 
> purposes then whatever. Otherwise I can file a bug report if desired...

Yes, several other things use it. It's something of an unfortunate name;
e-d-s is really a generic PIM information server.

It's a sensible model: it lets multiple applications access and modify
the information in question while they are all active. KDE, which did
not used to use this model, had a problem where if anything other than
KMail wanted to use contact data - say you wanted to synchronize it with
another device via OpenSync - you had to close KMail first, or messiness
could ensue (the sync would fail, or in a bad case KMail could fall
over; I think in a really really bad case you could even lose or
duplicate data). KDE is switching to the model of having a server for
this information with Akonadi. GNOME's server for this information is
e-d-s.

The most common non-Evolution user of e-d-s data is the clock applet on
the panel; it notifies you of impending appointments, and it does this
by looking them up via e-d-s. But there are several others too.

-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
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