[akunambol] Re: KDE owncloud client

[kunal]

Hi Riccardo,

I have some comments in-lined:
> Hi! :)
> I'm glad that you want to contribute to ownCloud. This is my idea of the
> better way to implement a sync client.
If i understand correctly , ownCloud aims to be a syncML server
which can sync with standards complaint syncML clients (on iphone, 
android, desktop (kde client))
right ?
> 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.

Funambol is a syncML server and has clients on all major mobile devices 
(is this necessary ?
Any syncML compliant client should be able to sync from any syncML 
server right ?)

So, Funambol provides the syncML server (lacking audio and video syncing 
capabilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncML#SyncMLservers ) that 
ownCloud aims to be ?

> The work would mostly consist in:
>   - Understanding how much painful it is to ship Funambol directly with

Funambol, has a bundled Tomcat instance, so it will run as a separate 
web service
and owncloud as a separate one. But we can make ownCloud as a wrapper 
around the
Funambol instance so that , ownCloud uses the Funambol backend , and 
provides
additional video , audio (sync services that funambol doesn't provide at 
the moment ,
source: wikipedia syncML servers list).

> ownCloud, and providing an easy way to install everything togehter.

hmm, i feel. we could ship a minimalist VM with everything preconfigured.
This would also include NAT hole punching ( as Hasanat kazmi proposed in
another thread , in the owncloud mailing list).

This would be the most no - brainer for people hosting ownCloud on home
servers, with dynamic IP addresses.

But for hosting ownCloud + Funambol on a hosting service.How that can be
easily done , in one step , i have no idea at the moment. It needs a bit
more of looking into :)

>   - Integrating Funambol's storage with ownCloud's, or make ownCloud read
> funambol's storage (eventually for other datatypes too, like contacts,
> calendar, ...).

This would be the most wise thing to do , at the moment. Leverage Funambol's
storage, and keep working on a php ( or python ) backend as you suggested in
your next point.

I am a member of the belenix dev team (belenix.org) its an OpenSolaris 
based
distro, and we were hit hard when the oracle-sun merger happened . Suddenly
our kernel , was closed-sourced by Oracle. So i am a bit skeptical about
Funambol, but have no problem using it , at the moment.

Please do share your thoughts on the point above :).

>   - 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.
>

Yes , as pointed out above.

> 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.

I had another idea,
We could provide a Funambol backend (till our implementation in php / 
python is done)
for syncing email , contacts , Memos , tasksetc. And provide a webdav 
based interface
for syncing Documents , music , Videos etc.

Also , with limited hard-disk space on netbooks and mobile phones, 
people would just want
to access ( as in just play ) their songs etc, hosted on their cloud.I 
think a web interface
(that we currently have) to play songs , and stream videos would be the 
way to go. The web
interface eliminates the need for native sync clients on mobile phones.


> 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


-- 
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

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