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

[Stephen Kelly]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 9:13 PM, David Ascher
<dascher at mozillamessaging.com> wrote:
> On 11/11/09 8:00 AM, Stephen Kelly wrote:
>>
>>> 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. :)
>>
>
> It's also true that Akonadi is for KDE only, right?  That's a very different
> scope than Raindrop has.

In principle, Akonadi is not KDE only. The Akonadi server is written
in Qt and depends only on QtCore, QtSql, QtPlugin, QtNetwork and
QtXml. It does not link to even QtGui.

The most advanced client library for accessing the akonadi server
currently is written in Qt/C++, and does depend on KDE. That's mostly
to allow configuration of accounts etc, which require gui and should
be integrated well in KDE.

I wrote the start of a python client library for Akonadi using twisted
for networking and PyGTK for gui to demonstrate that it is possible.

http://steveire.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/holy-grail-no-thanks-weve-already-got-one/
http://steveire.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/cross-platform-akonadi-video/

The above examples use the resources written in KDE (Resources in
Akonadi manage accounts, protocols etc), but it would also be possible
to write resources in python for mbox/maildir/imap/directory of
vCards/etc and not use the KDE ones at all. I would think that we will
eventually finish the python API anyway so that we can write resources
in python and access the data in KDE applications.

In saying all that though, I never expected Raindrop to jump at the
chance to use Akonadi when I first brought it up. It's just one end of
the "Continuum of Potential Collaboration". :)

>
>> 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?
>>
>
> At this point extensions are Python programs that do whatever they need and
> then insert data in the couch.

This sounds similar to Akonadi resources which run as separate
processes. I'm sure we can figure out a way to access data in both
directions.

>
>>> 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
>> [...]
>> That's just scratching the surface though. This semantic stuff is a very
>> deep rabbit hole.
>>
>
> Yes, which makes me want to quietly walk away...   ;-)
>>
>> 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.
>>
>
> AFAICT, there's a Firefox/Nepomuk add-on, but there's nothing that "Mozilla"
> is doing.  In particular, AFAIK neither the Firefox team nor the Thunderbird
> team are actively looking at it.

I see. It may not have gone far beyond the research stage there then.

All the best,

Steve.

>
> Cheers,
>
> --david
>
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