I guess this is an example of seeing the forest for the trees.
Yes, you can look only at the types of metadata tags that are specified narrowly and might I note that the specifications are intentionally fairly loose, to likely give Users latitude for real world implementation. I don’t see anything that would be considered for example “syntax” – ie. if not constructed in a very strict way, it would be a violation.
Or, you can look at the “Why?” and “How do we use this stuff?” and “What are people actually doing with it?” of how those metadata tags are used.
I prefer looking at technology this latter way to understand the <practical use> of the technology rather than only what is in a basic specification.
AppStream is exactly about specifying how to provide the metadata and what metadata to provide. That’s the main point.
Of course you can use a similar syntax (it’s just XML anyway) with different tags and metadata for completeley different things, but don’t call it AppStream then.
Or, you can look at the “Why?” and “How do we use this stuff?” and “What are people actually doing with it?” of how those metadata tags are used.
I prefer looking at technology this latter way to understand the <practical use> of the technology rather than only what is in a basic specification.
The practical use of this technology (as intended by the designers) is to allow software centers to present more information about applications available for installation to the user.
But if you wanted to implement such a system you talked of, using AppStream as a base would be plain non-sense IMHO.
It is intended for something completely different.
And metadata tags that describe an application on a user level, provide screenshots of it, … have nothing to do with (and cannot be used for) code-writing and version control, regardless of how you look at it…
I don’t know how much value continuing to disagree is,
But it’s pretty simple to do a Google search using “appstream” with optionally any of the products I listed in my earlier post, and then reading how they implemented appstream. Whether you would consider those as unauthorized bastardization of the original intent of the appstream developers is opinion.
Can you please provide examples? You never listed any particular “products”.
And I doubt that those "appstream"s you mean have any relation to the “AppStream” this thread is about.
When I do a google search for “appstream” the only other product that shows up is “Amazon AppStream” which definitely is something completely different…
And I don’t find anything to do with code writing and version control at all.