Elektra

This is what I have always been talking about (but failed to achieve/implement/convince). It's way overdue that application programmers use a common library API to manage configuration settings instead of having to reinvent the wheel a million times. I have heard all the arguments before, and I have an explanation for each and every one. So come on and flame me, but of course I would rather have an engaging discussion.

If Elektra were a girl, she'd be the one I'd marry. (based on first impressions till date)

Overview of the Elektra Initiative

Elektra is a universal hierarchical configuration store, with related goals like GConf and the Windows Registry. It allows programs to read and save their configurations with a consistent API, and allows them to be aware of other applications' configurations, leveraging easy application integration. The whole point of it is to tie applications together, so that they can co-operate and share their user-preferences.

The developers are associated to unix philosophy and the very practical point consists of writing a configuration library. Every software needs this functionality, it is not easy to do it right and performant and we want to avoid any unnecessary code duplication.

major focal points

1. API implementation to access the key/value pairs namespace with a variety of Backends and Bindings
2. Definition of a standard key/value pair hierarchy, namespaces and semantics
3. Produce quality patches for popular softwares as X.org, Samba, KDE's KConfig XT and Gnome's GConf