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Several times in the past, when I have joined discussions like this one the result has been personal insult. I have been called arrogant, moron, a^%ole, and worse. We will see what happens this time.
I can understand why people want their own database structure (yes, the file structure is part of a "database"). I can understand that without it, calibre does not meet their requirements. Nothing wrong with that -- people really do have different requirements. What I have difficulty understanding is why we developers are somehow bad people for not instantly stopping whatever we would rather be doing to build something like this.
People who work on calibre do so for a number of reasons. Here are mine. The most common is that I wanted calibre to do something that *I* wanted. This is why I got involved with calibre 3 years ago and why I have put more than 2 person/years of real time into the project. I wanted custom columns. I wanted more powerful searching. I wanted my devices to behave how I wanted them. I wanted restrictions (now virtual libraries). I wanted a more powerful template language. Etc.
Another reason to do something is that it grabs my attention and is interesting for some reason. That is why I worked on the set arithmetic part of find duplicates (a small part of what Kiwidude built). That is why I worked on column coloring and column icons. And so on. I had fun, which is more than adequate compensation.
A third reason to do something is that I like the requester. You might consider it a gift made simply for the pleasure of giving it, or as thanks for some help or service. I have done that several times.
I have two main reasons not to do something. The first is that it meets none of the above criteria: it is of no personal use, is not personally interesting, and is not a gift. The second is a reaction to how we are asked. I react badly to "entitlement", where someone seems to feel that I owe them my time simply because they exist. I react equally badly to being insulted because I don't agree with someone.
To come back to the topic of this post -- changing the file structure -- there aren't many calibre developers with experience inside this part of calibre's guts. I happen to be one of them, but changing the file structure is of zero interest to me. I would be just as happy it all the books in my library were named with a unique ID, totally opaque. In fact this *is* how I name books on my android devices. Why should I sign up for months of work, zillions of problem reports and some amount of abuse to do something I don't care about? No reason I can think of. Complaining about it over and over isn't going to change what I think.
Those of you who want a different file structure are where I was 3 years ago. You want something and no one else seems interested in building it. So build it yourself! At the risk of seeming to speak for Kovid, my experience is that he will integrate things into calibre if a) they work reliably for the millions of calibre users, b) don't increase his support load, c) do something useful, and d) he has confidence that the implementer will hang around long enough to help with the inevitable problems.
If you don't have the skills required to do it yourself then you must wait until someone comes along who does have the skills, acquire the skills, go somewhere else, or build your own solution. Your choice.
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