Comment 29 for bug 483443

Please correct me if I'm wrong:
The code currently handles file extension <-> mime type <-> application relations, sets up firefox as the default app for certain types and hands out other types to the corresponding default application.

For this special use case GIO itself is just a wrapper around xdg-mime, which is designed to be DE-independent.

What about using xdg-mime directly? That would make both parties happy as in removing dependency on a deprecated library and not introducing a new dependency on a library that kde people dislike, claiming to be too gnome-specific.