Re: GSOC: File Transfer Queue server/client

[Xavier Bestel <xavier bestel free fr>]

Hi,

On Mon, 2009-03-23 at 14:46 -0700, Tad Fisher wrote:
> Cross-posted from gnome-soc-list:
> 
> Hello, I'm a potential applicant looking for feedback on a project idea.
> 
> Basically, the plan is to develop a desktop-agnostic specification for
> the queuing of file transfers, much as Nautilus does now on its own. The
> spec will include details on specifying file sources and destinations,
> both of which may be located on the local machine or a network resource;
> adding/removing transfers from the queue; and running multiple transfers
> concurrently.

What's the point of this ? Is it just to avoid two simultaneous copy
from the same host/medium ?
On an unrelated note, I don't think you can easily ask applications to
abandon their way of copying files and centralize everything into one
server (Nautilus won't get rid of GIO, Konqueror will keep KIO, and
bittorrent clients need their highly tuned download engines).
But centralizing all those pesky progress dialogs is a very nice idea.
How about reviving the http://live.gnome.org/Mathusalem project ?
Basically do a protocol to export some progress tasks on D-Bus (file
copy, mail download, etc: every I/O bound task which takes more than 3
seconds to complete) and a nice UI on top, and plug that into each
relevant GNOME app (Nautilus, Epiphany, Evolution, Empathy ...) and more
(Firefox, KDE ...).

My 2¢