Re: GNOME Feature Proposal: Backup

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Tue, 2011-05-10 at 15:49 +0200, Michael Terry wrote:
> Hello!  You may remember me as the bloke that proposed the Déjà Dup
> backup tool as a GNOME module a little back, right as modules were
> being reorganized.
> 
> I've been encouraged to try again as a Feature.  I don't fully
> understand the process, but I gather an email to this list starts it
> off.
> 
> Here's a quick thousand foot view:
>  * Homepage here:  https://launchpad.net/deja-dup
>  * It's a backup program aimed at non-technical users.
>  * It's a graphical wrapper and policy manager for the backup program duplicity.
>  * It's included by default in Fedora 13 on and will be default in Ubuntu 11.10.
>  * It follows the GNOME schedule and best practices already.
> 
> For the next major version (20.0), I've done a redesign aimed at
> making it more "invisible" and appear as part of the OS.  I've made it
> live just as a control center panel and removed some branding to look
> a bit less like a separate app.  See
> http://live.gnome.org/DejaDup/Screenshots/Future for screenshots.
> Déjà Dup 19.1, which includes those changes, is already in Fedora
> Rawhide and will be in Ubuntu Oneiric once we land the GNOME 3 control
> center.

That won't work for long. Once we've move the Bluetooth panel directly
in the control-center, we'll be removing the external API from the
control-center. It was only added for gnome-bluetooth, and will be
removed then as well.

That doesn't mean that the functionality shouldn't be in the
control-center, but the integration needs to be even better within GNOME
for us to add it there, including design, competitive research, etc.

> I suspect GNOME might be interested in having a "backup story" so I'm
> offering this one.  And I'd be happy to have increased design advice
> and developer eyeballs.

I'd really like Deja Dup to be even more integrated into the system,
meaning that we should make it possible to backup the whole system,
using fanotify(), and possibly integrating with btrfs snapshots.

I don't think it's possible to have Deja Dup restore from bare metal
right now, but I think this is what we should be aiming at, or at least
allowing for re-install plus restore with minimal damage.

> I have a few related questions:
>  * What does being a GNOME Feature obligate me to?  Basically the
> normal module stuff?
>  * Déjà Dup lives in Launchpad.  I'd love to explore ways of
> integrating the GNOME workflow and LP, but I would prefer that it
> remain in LP.
> 
> I'm also happy to answer any questions about Déjà Dup, obviously.

Cheers