Re: ThreePointOne: Contacts

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 12:41 +0200, daniel g. siegel wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 11:37 +0100, Ross Burton wrote:
> > On 19 April 2011 11:27, Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 11:43 +0200, daniel g. siegel wrote:
> > >> another very important point is synchronisation. together with salomon
> > >> sickert we thought about how to solve this problem. basically we came up
> > >> with the idea of a self-replicating backend, like couchdb. if we then
> > >> could add support to the contact apps of other computer/devices like a
> > >> n900 or android, we would get synchronisation and conflict management
> > >> for free.
> > >>
> > >> then there is also the idea of having a webservice for the gnome
> > >> contacts app, where you can access your contacts over the internet.
> > >>
> > >> we are very interested in your opinions about this!
> > >
> > > I don't know really. Synchronization is a tricky subject, with complex
> > > protocols and risk for merge problems. Its almost always a source of
> > > weird problems. I don't think we want to have synchronization as some
> > > core part of the design.
> > >
> > > On the other hand, its important that there is some level of support for
> > > synchronizing contacts with e.g. phones. So, I guess we need to think
> > > about where it fits in.
> > 
> > If you start to talk about synchronisation, please talk to Patrick
> > Ohly <patrick ohly gmx de>.  He maintains SyncEvolution that is
> > probably the only working PIM syncing tool that I know of, and it's
> > totally non-trivial.
> 
> you mean "kinda-working"? ;) indeed, synchronisation with todays devices
> over syncml is extremely hard. i really don't want that in the core
> design neither.
> 
> i was more thinking about a backend like couchdb, which has a
> synchronisation solution already built in. ubuntu does that for example
> with evolution and ubuntu one.
> 
evolution-couchdb provides that already, so if folks has an e-d-s
backend, it should already be available. Also, replication/conflict
management in couchdb is quite good indeed

The "problem" with this is that for couchdb to be really useful, the
best thing is to run a local instance that then syncs to a remote
instance, and while it's entirely possible (as you said, Ubuntu One does
it) some people showed their concerns when I proposed
couchdb-glib/evolution-couchdb (for 2.30 I think it was) about running a
local instance of couchdb.

But yes, should be perfectly possible. Maybe we should revisit the
discussion again?