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Hi Riccardo,<br>
<br>
I have some comments in-lined:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi! :)
I'm glad that you want to contribute to ownCloud. This is my idea of the
better way to implement a sync client.
</pre>
</blockquote>
If i understand correctly , ownCloud aims to be a syncML server<br>
which can sync with standards complaint syncML clients (on iphone,
android, desktop (kde client))<br>
right ? <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The work would be split in two, and would mostly consist of implementing the
SyncML API with it. There is a well tested package which can provide that -
it's Funambol, which is AGPL and written in Java.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Funambol is a syncML server and has clients on all major mobile
devices (is this necessary ?<br>
Any syncML compliant client should be able to sync from any syncML
server right ?)<br>
<br>
So, Funambol provides the syncML server (lacking audio and video
syncing capabilities <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncML#SyncMLservers">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncML#SyncMLservers</a>
) that ownCloud aims to be ?<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The work would mostly consist in:
- Understanding how much painful it is to ship Funambol directly with
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Funambol, has a bundled Tomcat instance, so it will run as a
separate web service<br>
and owncloud as a separate one. But we can make ownCloud as a
wrapper around the <br>
Funambol instance so that , ownCloud uses the Funambol backend , and
provides<br>
additional video , audio (sync services that funambol doesn't
provide at the moment , <br>
source: wikipedia syncML servers list).<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">ownCloud, and providing an easy way to install everything togehter.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
hmm, i feel. we could ship a minimalist VM with everything
preconfigured.<br>
This would also include NAT hole punching ( as Hasanat kazmi
proposed in <br>
another thread , in the owncloud mailing list).<br>
<br>
This would be the most no - brainer for people hosting ownCloud on
home<br>
servers, with dynamic IP addresses. <br>
<br>
But for hosting ownCloud + Funambol on a hosting service.How that
can be<br>
easily done , in one step , i have no idea at the moment. It needs a
bit<br>
more of looking into :)<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> - Integrating Funambol's storage with ownCloud's, or make ownCloud read
funambol's storage (eventually for other datatypes too, like contacts,
calendar, ...).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
This would be the most wise thing to do , at the moment. Leverage
Funambol's<br>
storage, and keep working on a php ( or python ) backend as you
suggested in<br>
your next point.<br>
<br>
I am a member of the belenix dev team (belenix.org) its an
OpenSolaris based <br>
distro, and we were hit hard when the oracle-sun merger happened .
Suddenly<br>
our kernel , was closed-sourced by Oracle. So i am a bit skeptical
about <br>
Funambol, but have no problem using it , at the moment.<br>
<br>
Please do share your thoughts on the point above :).<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> - Provide a fallback implementation in PHP (using one of the pletora of other
libraries available), which either implements all of the specification, or
just a subset of it, maybe only files, so that we don't let PHP-only users
down.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes , as pointed out above.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">All of this is just an idea, and we need to evaluate all the option with
SyncML solutions first, to see how well they work.
The client itself is already under development, and it's akunambol, of which
I'm the maintainer. It is currently in the process of being modularized, and
we are creating an API to be able to allow very easily creation of different
sync types.
Once that is in place, it would be very easy (I estimate less than 100 rows of
code) to write the plugin to sync files. The biggest work would then be
integrading SyncML in ownCloud. Doing this will also bring the possibility to
add many other synchronization types to ownCloud, as I was saying before, PIM
data, or other things. Since SyncML is a standard this will also allow other
devices (iPhones, blackberries, MeeGo ...) to sync with it.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I had another idea,<br>
We could provide a Funambol backend (till our implementation in php
/ python is done)<br>
for syncing email , contacts , Memos , tasks<span
class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color:
rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> etc. And provide a
webdav based interface<br>
for syncing Documents , music , Videos etc.<br>
<br>
Also , with limited hard-disk space on netbooks and mobile
phones, people would just want<br>
to access ( as in just play ) their songs etc, hosted on their
cloud.I think a web interface<br>
(that we currently have) to play songs , and stream videos would
be the way to go. The web<br>
interface eliminates the need for native sync clients on mobile
phones.<br>
</span></span><br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:201101261205.55817.riccardo@kde.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Let me know of what you think, I'm CC'ing akunambol's and ownClouds mailing
lists so that everybody can provide feedback.
Bye,
-Riccardo
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
regards
-------
Kunal Ghosh
Dept of Computer Sc. & Engineering.
Sir MVIT
Bangalore,India
permalink: member.acm.org/~kunal.t2
Blog:kunalghosh.wordpress.com
Website:www.kunalghosh.net46.net
</pre>
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