This is a very good idea.
There are plans to implement such things in the extension. This way it
will be easier to port/modify this package to follow the development of
the exif extension.
I think the package itself might be very useful to those who don't have access to the latest PHP. So tying it to the exif extension might not be the best choice. At least not in the near future.
And using the "native" extensions in my package is not that simple, because I need to provide the ability of writting the data back, so I need to get more information than what is needed for read-only access, and more information than what the native extensions provide.
So in the end, we would have two almost independent implementations, one using the native methods and one using php code. One allowing read and write and one read only. It is just that those two implementations would live in the same package. And that is not, at least not in my eyes, justification enough to delay the current package and specially not enough for the amount of work it would need.
As I said, is the time a real problem? You both already use your
packages, with or without pear. Sebastian, is there a special reason to
publish it right now? or is it not better to take the time? Keeping in
mind the near futur of the exif extension.
The way I see it is that there might be people for whom this library would be very useful as is. I already have it, so time doesn't matter to me... but someone might be looking for a way to write EXIF information, and that person would be affected.
hth
pierre