[Kde-pim] Raindrop and Akonadi: Scope for collaboration

[Stephen Kelly]

David Ascher wrote:

> On 10/26/09 3:50 PM, Stephen Kelly wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Your announcement last week about the Raindrop Project caught my
>> attention for its scope and for its timing.
>>    
> 
> Sorry for the delay in answering.

That's cool. Thanks for the reply.

>> I am a developer on the Akonadi project - the KDE4 platform for next
>> generation PIM applications.
>>
>> http://pim.kde.org/akonadi/
>>
>> (Link for the Akonadi people: http://labs.mozilla.com/raindrop )
>>
>> Akonadi is a platform independent PIM framework designed to be accessed
>> with any/multiple APIs and to cache and share data between PIM
>> applications. As it happens, I was recently working on a proof of concept
>> for getting PIM data into a web browser in the form of a web application.
>>
>> http://steveire.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/akonadi-goes-web2-0/
>>    
> 
> congrats on the announcement!

Thanks. I haven't had time to work on it since, but it's good for mindshare.

>> As Akonadi and Raindrop face the same challenges and attempt to solve
>> similar problems, I thought it would be a good idea to investigate scope
>> for collaboration, or at least to tell you that we exist :).
>>    
> 
> Indeed!
>> * Completing the python-akonadi API and porting Raindrop to use Akonadi.
>> This would allow the maximum potential for sharing of data and
>> collaborating, and the best user experience on platforms with
>> mixed/multiple apis and applications. Of course I'm dreaming here, but if
>> Thunderbird uses Akonadi too, there would be easy mixing/mashing between
>> all KDE PIM applications, Raindrop and Thunderbird.
>>    
> 
> At this point I don't think _porting_ of Raindrop to anything is
> likely.  I'm not sure what Akonadi's long-term goals are, but we're
> trying to make Raindrop as flexible to deploy as possible.  Note that in
> particular we _don't_ want to build a universal PIM, which does seem to
> be Akonadi's goal.

That is indeed the goal of Akonadi. It is intended to be universal enough 
that software like Raindrop could be implemented on top of it. I did know 
that such a thing would be unlikely for Raindrop when I wrote the email, but 
better not to leave these things out anyway. :)

> 
>> * Writing a bridge for transferring data between Akonadi and Raindrop.
>> There is already work in progress on a CouchDB resource for Akonadi,
>> allowing any Akonadi using application to access and manipulate data from
>> a couch. This would potentially bring the same benefits as above, but
>> with added potential difficulties such as conflicts and no reduction of
>> code duplication (imap, twitter implementation etc).
>>    
> 
> Right, someone could write what we call a "protocol" to get data to and
> from Akonadi into and out of Raindrop. We've focused on those for
> messages, but we will someday figure out how Raindrop wants to talk to
> sources of "contact" data as well.

I see. It should be possible write such a protocol resource whenever someone 
(or me) has time for a fun project. Is the protocol based on JSON as well in 
Raindrop?

> 
>> * Sharing information on UX such as conflict resolution dialogs, managing
>> multiple resources for the same type of data and how much of that should
>> be abstracted away, and technical issues such as how to deal with broken
>> IMAP servers, concurrency and security.
>> This one obviously doesn't involve any code sharing and has the least
>> direct benefit for the user.
>>
>>    
> 
> That seems like a very diverse set of topics, some of which could have
> shared code, and some of which not.  I'm not sure what to say about it
> as a result =).

Indeed.

> 
>> * I also notice that Mozilla is part of the nepomuk project.
> 
> Uh, I have no idea what nepomuk is, or how Mozilla is a part of it. Do
> you have details?

http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main1/Nepomuk-Mozilla
http://code.google.com/p/nepomuk-mozilla/
http://dot.kde.org/2009/10/22/semantic-desktop-wants-you

In a nutshell, Nepomuk is about giving your computer the same understanding 
of your data that you have.

People can be associated with projects or tasks for example, or you could 
receive an email with an attachment relevant to a project, or create a note 
that references a person, or a place, or associate websites with things you 
like to do.

That then makes it easier to create workflows with the computer such as 
switching between different activities, such as development, PR work, 
home/downtime, and have the most relevant contacts, notes, documents etc 
conveniently presented to you.

That's just scratching the surface though. This semantic stuff is a very 
deep rabbit hole. 

I have no idea how far along the Mozilla side is, but in KDE we're making 
more and more use of Nepomuk. Parts of it are also shared with the 
GNOME/Tracker project.

Thanks for the reply anyway. I'll be keeping one eye on Raindrop as it 
progresses.

All the best,


Steve.

> 
> --david
> 
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