Why aren’t more applications using gnome-keyring?

Why aren’t more applications using gnome-keyring? is the question asked on the main page of the pam-keyring module. Their posited answer is that it is inconvenient for users / lacks integration with the authentication proess. Now this is indeed true – it would be very desirable from a user’s POV if they didn’t have to separately unlock the keyring – it should just be unlocked when logging in. This is not, however, the reason why more applications don’t use gnome-keyring – it is merely a user inconvenience. Having just spent some time adding support for gnome-keyring to virt-manager, the real answer is crystal clear: There is zero documentation about either the C or Python APIs for gnome-keyring. Even having read the source from existing apps using it like NetworkManager, many aspects of the API are far from clear – particularly all the asynchronous methods. Its no wonder all apps I can find use the synchronous methods instead – you can at least take a reasonable guess at their API contract in most cases. That said when the API is all about securely managing passwords, it seems very wrong to be guessing about the best way to use it. If someone were to document gnome-keyring, the barrier to use for application developers would be dramatically lower.