[Owncloud] GSoC 2011 ownCloud Sync Client , drop-box survey

[kunal ghosh]

Hi,
Today i had a look at what Drop Box(DB) has to offer, since my proposed work
is to bring a bropbox-like sync functionality.

I will list out the features of the DB sync-Client I noticed:

1. Selective sync of *folders.*
2. LAN Sync.
3. files in the *Public Folder* get standalone links.
4. Proxy configurations.
5. Bandwidth shaping.
6. Shows storage space remaining in the Cloud Server.
7. *Doesn't resolve merge conflicts (User Decides Model)
*8. Sharing files/folder with friends , *All must have dropbox accounts :(
*9. Uses Deltas for large file syncs. (Syncs only the changes)
10. Locks file when sync commences.
11. Uses Inotify in linux to monitor filesystem changes.

All that DB does, is syncs folders, and most people seem to be happy with
it. After all contact sync , calender sync are all semantics on top
of a simple file sync.

After our interaction over IRC I had a look at what funambol has to offer.
Its an amazing project and has a lot of apps (android , iphone etc) so its
definitely worth
a look. But a small caveat is that the server portion is written in java,
and the goal of ownCloud is to support php based , "el-cheapo" web hosting
services as well.

So we have to look at a fall-back strategy, where in , if people are hosting
ownCloud server on their personal infrastructure / Amazon Web Services then
they should
have an option of using the more feature rich Funambol server + ownCloud.

Questions:

1. Funambol server uses a database to store all files right ? Photo albums ,
contacts etc are stored in the database.
2. As a first step how about , we work on the php backend , and the
sync-client (opensync python API based ) ? We could use the funambol
as a starting point to look at how to approach the server-side (php backend)
sync.


Comments , suggestions ?
-- 
regards
-------
Kunal Ghosh
Dept of Computer Sc. & Engineering.
Sir MVIT
Bangalore,India

permalink: member.acm.org/~kunal.t2 <http://member.acm.org/%7Ekunal.t2>
Blog:kunalghosh.wordpress.com
Website:www.kunalghosh.net46.net
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