Re: GSOC 2011

[Simon Lindgren <simon n lindgren gmail com>]

ons 2011-03-23 klockan 08:38 -0500 skrev W. Michael Petullo:
> > My name is Simon Lindgren and I am a CS student from Sweden interested
> > in doing a GSOC project for F-Spot. I have previously asked a question
> > about support for server-side metadata and photo storage, and this is
> > basically my idea for a project: Implement server-side storage of
> > metadata and photos and also support for synchronization between
> > different computers. This is a solution to a (for me) very real problem,
> > as I have both a laptop and a desktop and want to use my desktop when
> > possible and my laptop otherwise.
> > 
> > Can somebody comment on the feasibility of such a project? Is it a
> > suitable project?
> 
> You problem statement is a bit general, and there are several ways you
> can accomplish what you describe. One of them (an Apple-centric solution)
> is to implement DPAP (i.e., iPhoto sharing) support in F-Spot. I am the
> maintainer of libdmapsharing, a library that implements DPAP, DAAP and
> DACP. Currently, Rhythmbox uses libdmapsharing to implement DAAP (i.e.,
> iTunes sharing). One of my project suggestions [1,2] is to add
> libdmapsharing-based DPAP support to F-Spot; I would be happy to mentor
> a student working on this project within the GNOME Google Summer of Code
> effort. Last year a student did work within GSoC to add DACP support
> to libdmapsharing.
> 
> I would envision that this project would:
> 
> 	(likely) write Mono bindings for libdmapsharing
> 
> 	add cient-side support for DPAP to F-Spot
> 
> 	(possibly) add server-side support for DPAP to F-Spot
> 
> The third bullet could be replaced by the use of dmapd [3]. Dmapd is a
> dedicated DAAP and DPAP server.
> 
> [1] http://live.gnome.org/SummerOfCode2011/Ideas
> [2] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=338186
> [3] http://www.flyn.org/projects/dmapd/
> 

I am not familiar with the D?AP protocols and how they work, though I
have heard of them. My impressions so far is that they are designed to
access media sources on a LAN. Is this true?

I was a bit vague on purpose, because as you say, there are many ways to
accomplish this. My requirements on the design of this feature would be:
 * Support the full range of f-spot metadata (including plugin data).
 * Support the full range of operations available inside f-spot (ie.
create new version, add images, add tags, ...)
 * Store at least metadata and thumbnails locally to enable browsing
with reasonable performance.

Basically, I want to synchronize all the data handled by f-spot.

My personal use case for this is this:
I grew up ~1000km from where I am now studying, so it is hard to move
lots of stuff back and forth. This means that I will only bring my
laptop with me, when going home during summers for example. This is also
the time when I take the most pictures, so I need to import images to
f-spot now and then, but my f-spot database is located on my desktop,
which is more powerful and has a better screen. I want to be able to
have my f-spot data on both computers, kept in sync automatically.

Can this be accomplished using DPAP?

-- 
Simon Lindgren