(Responses please to the ooo-api list) I wanted to confirm some thinking I've been having recently. Please let me know if any of this sounds plausible or even useful.
The problem I'm trying to solve is how to make OpenOffice better connected with the online tools that we all use today, from DropBox to Drupal, Twitter to Facebook, Sharepoint to SAP. We do have a few extensions in these areas. That is good. But I'm wondering if there are some things we can do in the API to make these kinds of extensions much easier. The key observation is that there is a set of protocols and formats that have emerged as the basic foundation of connecting with these kinds of apps. HTTP/XML at the base, but also on top things like RSS, Atom, OData, OAuth, OpenID, OpenSocial, CMIS, etc. What if we made available in our SDK, access to a cross-platform library that provided these capabilities without any extra coding required? Where needed, provide integration with native credential stores, etc. So the SDK does all the heavy lifting. The extension authors can then focus on things at a higher level. In other words, make socially-connected OpenOffice apps be in the reach of every app developers, rather than requiring a protocol expert. I'd be interested in hearing from extension authors on whether such a capability would be useful. And how useful? Regards, -Rob
