Re: Proposed module: conduit

[John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com>]

On Tue, 2008-07-29 at 11:24 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 00:32 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
> > Homepage: http://www.conduit-project.org
> > svn/git/bzr/...: http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/conduit/
> > Proposal on d-d-l: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2008-March/msg00320.html
> > License: ??? (GPLv2 or later?)
> > 
> > Short description:
> > ==================
> > Conduit is a synchronization architecture for the GNOME desktop. It
> > provides an intuitive GUI for synchronizing things and a DBus interface
> > for external applications to do the same.
> 
> Surely any proposed application should be much clearer about what it
> will allow users to do.
> 
> What can I realistically expect to sync with what? Are we talking about
> syncing multiple desktops, or syncing information between the desktop
> and phones/PDAs.

For a good overview, written better than I could, please check out the
lifehacker article
http://lifehacker.com/398775/sync-and-back-up-your-data-with-conduit-for-linux
And also, the presentation I gave at GUADEC is pretty informative
http://files.conduit-project.org/Conduit%20-%20GUADEC%202008.pdf

> 
> How easy is it to do this for any particular specific cases, such as
> syncing a Palm with a desktop PC (With Evolution, hopefully), or syncing
> the contacts on my mobile phone, or with my N810?

Palm isnt supported.
Windows mobile 5/6 support is OK, and getting better.
Nokia phone support (via gnome-phone-manager is being worked on ATM)
Nokia nxxx support is pretty good.

Our strength and historical focus has been sync to online services from
GNOME apps. Our current focus is on mobile devices. 

We have two SOC projects, SyncML support, and iPod support.

> 
> Also, shouldn't this be integrated into particular applications?
> Shouldn't Evolution have a sync menu item, replacing it's current awful
> gnome-pilot synchronization feature.

Our future plans involve integrating into other applications when it
makes sense. Doing so at this point may be putting the cart before the
horse, for technical reasons outlined in the presentation above.

John