Teknozip – A key feature connecting GNOME desktops to Google Drive is being retired in the upcoming GNOME 50 release. The decision stems from a lack of active maintenance for the underlying library, libgdata, rather than a deliberate move by the GNOME development team.
The change was brought to light via a bug report on the GNOME Discourse forum, where a user observed the absence of Google Drive integration in Nautilus, the default file manager, on Fedora 44 running GNOME 50. While access to Google services for mail, contacts, and calendar remained, the Google Drive functionality was non-operational.
Emmanuele Bassi, a member of the GNOME Team, confirmed the removal, citing the neglected state of libgdata. This library, crucial for integrating with certain Google online services, has been without a maintainer for almost four years. The GVFS (GNOME Virtual File System) had already disabled the dependency by default ten months prior, and GNOME Online Accounts now reflects this change.
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A "Call for help with libgdata" post highlighted the need for a volunteer to maintain the library until GNOME could transition to an alternative solution. However, no one stepped forward, leaving the GNOME team with no choice but to remove the unsupported feature.
The situation underscores the challenges faced by open-source projects reliant on community contributions. While Linux distributions often incorporate support for proprietary applications to ease user migration and provide diverse options, the long-term viability of these integrations depends on dedicated maintenance. In this case, the lack of a volunteer maintainer led to the removal of a feature, despite its potential usefulness to some users.