[Kde-pim] GSoC: Akonadi SyncML support

[Patrick Ohly]

Hi Riccardo!

It's good to see that you got something out. Congratulations!

On Fr, 2010-04-09 at 20:35 +0200, Riccardo Iaconelli wrote:
> Now, since I don't really feel like trashing, just after the first release, 
> all the code and all the effort that I put into it, and since it is already 
> there and it already works well, until I finish implementing the needed 
> features I'd like to continue developing it as a very lightweight application 
> that, in a very UNIXey philosophy, does one thing and does it well,

Syncing with an HTTP server and a phone are very similar. Some extra
work is needed to simplify the setup of direct sync with a phone, but
the rest of the GUI is identical. Therefore I don't think it makes sense
to focus on just one use case when there is an opportunity to get both.

> eventually 
> with room for additional features and integration.

One of the problems you have right now is that the sync engine runs
inside the same thread as the GUI. As mentioned in the response to your
0.1 announcement, that causes the GUI to lock up noticeably while the
engine is busy. Changing that is not just a matter of adding something,
it is a key design decision.

As you might know, SyncEvolution solves that by separating frontend and
backend. The actual sync runs inside a D-Bus service daemon, which is
also necessary to implement features like automatic sync without running
the frontend.

> But I'm also definitely open to thoughts on what to do for the future. :) 
> After all, I think that joining forces is much Better(tm) than reinventing the 
> wheel. Anyways, just throwing some ideas here: what if we made the target of 
> the GSoc to develop a "backend" for akunambol, so that, when it finds 
> SyncEvolution over dbus, it is able to use some of its features? That would 
> still an Akonadi plugin for syncevo, but it would mean reusing the UI and 
> allowing deploying additional features in an easier and more granular way on a 
> working and tested utility. Or, I don't know...

Conceptually the configuration of SyncEvolution and Funambol are
similar, so that part might work. But progress events during a sync are
very different. I also don't know how manageable the GUI code will be
when it has to implement everything twice: once for Funambol as embedded
engine, once for SyncEvolution over D-Bus.

> Oh, by the way, how does SyncEvolution work on embedded devices?

I expect it to work well, but haven't tried anything myself. The
Synthesis engine is used in mobile devices and SyncEvolution doesn't add
much overhead to that.

Do you have a specific device in mind?

-- 
Bye, Patrick Ohly
--  
Patrick.Ohly at gmx.de
http://www.estamos.de/


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