[Owncloud] ownCloud, SyncML and Akunambol

[Riccardo Iaconelli]

Hi!

I am currently in the process of making Akunambol a plugin based application, 
to enable KDE (starting from Plasma) to benefit from a syncing framework.

This would not only mean syncing stuff via SyncML, even if SyncML is certainly 
a big player.

Just to start, I'd like to make a couple of usually misunderstood things 
clear:

  - Akunambol is NOT a PIM application. Or at least, it is not going to be. It 
is actually not even going to be (just) an application. :)
  - SyncML is a completely mimetype agnostic protocol. It could sync 
everything, including stuff like files, or random binary data. It is not even 
limited to mobile platforms (e.g. sync via bluetooth) - actually - Ubuntu One 
is built on top of it.

With it we could do stuff like simple file syncing (ala dropbox/ubuntu one) or 
more complex things, like configuration syncing, sharing data, backups of 
random things (nepomuk metadata?)...

SyncML usually needs a centralized server. ownCloud seems like the best point 
where we can work on this. I have talked with one of ownCloud developers one 
month ago or such (can't remember the name :/), and, some time before, with 
Frank too. They both seemed to think that this was a terrific idea. :)

So, what I propose would be something like:

- having a SyncML implementation on ownCloud:

  - using one of the many SyncML PHP libraries where it's the only thing we 
support.
  - using funambol wherever we have a shell access (it's an awesome AGPLv3 
app, unfortunately written in java). This would open up collaboration from 
some funambol guys that could help us in their free time, who have already 
shown much interest.

- using akunambol or any other local application that supports the SyncML 
protocol to perform the actual sync. This would include allowing to sync 
directly to mobile phones or other devices (via http/syncml).

Soo... what do you people think? I've tried to keep this email as short as 
possible to ensure everybody could easily get to the end of it, but I think it 
already reflects the immense possibilities that we have. :)

I had to schedule an IRC meeting in November to discuss this, but got a bit 
caught up with school - do you think it could be worthwhile to do it now-
soonish?

Bye,
-Riccardo
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