Nepomuk-KDE Frequently Asked Questions

Why don't you use the extended attributes that most recent file systems provide to store the information?

There are mainly two answers to this question. Both are pretty pragmatic:

1. Not all file systems currently in use support extended attributes. The most important one being FAT which is still widely used to interchange data between operating systems. Thus, one would still need a backup solution which could be the default in the first place.
2. The more important reason is that Nepomuk is not only about files. We want to handle much more metadata. Metadata about all types of information that are present on a desktop system. This will include emails, contacts, links to webpages, users, remote machines, the local machine itself, abstract entities like projects (not related to any specific application and, thus, a file), running applications, software packages, days, weeks, years, and so on. The list is neverending. File metadata is only the beginning.