RFC: Decouple the daemon from other parts of KDEconnect?

[Aleix Pol]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 7:45 PM, Mayeul Cantan <mayeul.cantan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> Yeah, I know, I haven't been active on KDEconnect lately, and my first
> plugin project is still where I left it quite some time (almost a
> year) ago.
> Anyway, I was having a discussion on the #postmarketos about a way to
> connect phones to the computer trough a USB cable, and it occurred to
> me that KDEconnect was a pretty convenient solution, instead of
> reinventing the whole sftp-over-network-over-usb thing (which works
> with KDEconnect, if you have never tried, just put your phone in
> tethering mode).
>
> So, as I see it, kdeconnect is made of multiple parts: a daemon, a gui
> and a cellphone client.
> Currently, the daemon and the gui live in the same repository, and the
> client is android-only.
>
> I have seen some effort in the direction of allowing multiple daemons
> to communicate with each other (to send files to other computers). But
> I am not sure that it is capable of everything the client can do.
>
> What I would like to see is the repository being split up, with the
> daemon living in its own repository (maybe with a name such as
> deviceConnect or something, to make it sound a bit less intimidating
> to non-KDE members). It could be in turn ported to postmarketOS and
> serve as a backend for cross-device communication.
>
> In my understanding, the daemon could almost be capabilities-agnostic.
> That is, just serve as an authentication and discovery mechanism
> between devices (maybe even negotiate to drop TLS over USB?).
> Consumers and Providers running on the device could then register some
> capabilities with the daemon trough a d-bus interface. This way,
> different devices and graphical interfaces could easily talk to each
> other in their favorite language/protocol.
> Actually, this might also start as a separate project and then serve
> as a back-end to KDEconnect.
>
> So, what do you think of this proposal? Any remarks or suggestions?
>
> Please understand that I am in no way a major contributor to either
> postmarketOS or KDEconnect (yet?). I am just connecting dots here. I
> might also have (wrongly) assumed something about the architecture of
> any component.
>
> Best, and thank you for your hard work,
>
> Mayeul

Hi,
I'm sorry but I don't see how splitting will make it better.
Otherwise, development will be harder.

Maybe you can look into this issue from a packaging side?

Aleix