Gnome Online Accounts (GOA) provides a centralized service that
allows a set of online accounts to be configured for use with core
GNOME applications. In UX terms, GOA provides a static list of
online accounts that can be setup by users (through the Online
Accounts panel in System Settings). These accounts can then be used
by core GNOME applications.
While third party applications can access the accounts setup through
GOA, this is not its explicit goal, nor does GOA set out to enable
third party applications to add online accounts of their own. There
are several reasons for this:
* Third-party applications should be able to identify themselves
to online services for the purposes of branding and tracking.
* Third-party applications shouldn't be able to identify themselves
under a generic OS or distributor key - this would be misleading
as to what is actually accessing the account, and would prevent
there from being specific contracts of trust between users and
applications who access their data.
* It would prevent users from blocking specific applications from
accessing their account (should an application sandboxing framework
come into effect).
