[GSOC 2014] project : Improve sharing experience

[Aaron Zakhrov]

hey here is another draft proposal for GSOC 2014
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?Name and Contact Information
Aaron Pramod Dominick
E-Mail: aaron.zakhrov at gmail.com, aaronx_ at hotmail.com
Phone: +919886648308
Github Repository: https://www.github.com/Zakhrov
Blog: www.zakhrov.wordpress.com

Title
Improve Sharing experience on 

Synopsis
As of now KDE does not have a unified file sharing experience. We have the kdenetwork-filesharing that works with samba shares but not anything else.
KDE connect is an excellent project to share files and much more with your Android device however it is still an independent application and does not integrate with dolphin or other file managers.
What I propose is a fully integrated system that allows KDE to share files over any wired or wireless network to other PCs and devices using existing open protocols such as http avahi and UPnP.

Benefits to Community
The new File sharing software will allow KDE users to quickly and easily share files and stream media from their desktop to any PC or device on the network that supports the http+Avahi/UPnP protocol using a single click ( or a few clicks). This technology will also benifit early adopters of Plasma Active/Vivaldi tablets since it will allow them to easily sync their devices with their exisiting KDE installations. It will work on any GNU/Linux distribution and will not employ any non-free/proprietary protocols or libraries.

Deliverables
March 21-April 21:Initial Investigation and research into Avahi and Upnp- 
Avahi has Qt4 libraries but Upnp does not. Therefore proper study of the documentation in coordination with a mentor must be performed. A Git repository for new code and documentation needs to be set up for easy integration into KDE's master repositories.
April 22-May 19-20: Design Documentation- Detailed Module break down and UML diagrams will be designed here with feedback from a mentor.
May 19-August 17-18: Coding and testing- The modules will be coded tested and delivered.

Related Work
This is similar in many ways to the KDE connect project. The main difference is that there will be no pairing or authentication. Users can share any file in their filesystem by copying/symlinking it to a shared folder they can specify. Folder access will have the same UNIX/Linux permissions as an apache public directory (it basically is one). This folder can be discovered using Avahi or any other Zeroconf protocol and can be read and written to by any host. Users will be prompted by notifications similar to that of a bluetooth notification that files are being read from/ written to the shared folder and can accept or deny requests.

Biographical Information
I am doing a Masters Degree in Computer Applications from the Oxford College of Science (No relation to the Oxford University UK :-P) Affliated to Bangalore University. I have been a user of Linux and KDE since 2005.
My skills include C/C++ programming. Qt Programming. Basic Networking and Linux System Administration and Debian Package creation.
I have made a Qt Application based on the Phonon Multimedia Framework called WebPhonon licenced under the GNU GPL and available here:
https://www.github.com/Zakhrov/WebPhonon