alt Hacker News> Without a universal standard
The universal standard is Dublin Core (IETF RFC 2413 / ISO 15836) `dc:subject` “Unordered array of Text” stored in an XMP (ISO 16684) sidecar file:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core#Dublin_Core_Metada...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform
I like to put the DC stuff directly in my filesystem xattrs, but using a sidecar file will get you compatibility with any old filesystem and with any tooling that might destroy or disregard an xattr.
This is an amazing bit already, but it would be a 10/10 joke if you could work "year of the Linux desktop" into it somewhere.
If you were serious, then I would point out that even nerd file browsers like Nautilus do not support xattr metadata editing, searching, or even viewing and Linux metadata indexing systems e.g. Beagle are all long-dead projects. The whole idea has no traction.