Some use cases:

* As web server administrator i would like to see server statuses in my gnome-system-monitor..

BenoitDejean: This has to be done at the libgtop level. It's currently broken, but libgtop was meant for this

* As database administrator i would like to see slow queries, connected users etc...

BenoitDejean: Has to be portable. system-monitor code is *whatever* independant. Connected users is interesting, but i don't think one would run X + gnome-system-monitor on your database server.

* As notebook user i would like to see eager power-consumers (like powertop but much nicer

BenoitDejean: Has to be portable.

* As gnome developer i would like to have an easy api to implement little monitor for *put your favorite monitorable thing here*

BenoitDejean: this may be the answer to many portability issues.

System-monitor is not complete, but it mostly runs everywhere libgtop is ported to.