Re: [Opensync-users] One-way sync (WAS: Advice on a cell phone purchase?)

[Emanoil K. <del...@ya...>]

Hi Dotan and thanks for the discussion.
Good luck with your exams! I'm also buzy with a thesis
and it seems to take the hole summer but in general
I'm willing to help of course, because I am suffering
baadly with this contact/calender mess, thats getting
worse and worse.

--- Dotan Cohen <dot...@gm...> wrote:

> 2008/6/7 Emanoil Kotsev <del...@ya...>:
> >> In my opinion things are getting better with
> >> opensync, however, the
> >> hardware manufacturers change their sync specs
> with
> >> every new phone.
> >
> > That's really the problem. I was thinking if we
> can
> > force them to post the specs in advance, so that
> we
> > may cope. At least hear in Europe it could be
> done,
> > because honestly I feel my rights hurt if I'm
> buying a
> > phone and have to buy a OS (mostlly bundled to
> > hardware) to sync it.
> > I also beleive that the manufacturers will
> cooperate
> > (and why not?)
> 
> Well, we can't force them to do anything. But we
> could tell them that
> we purchase the products that do what we need them
> to. And we need
> Linux support.

So they are willing and we are willing too :-) It
sounds just great and promising.

> 
> >> Hopefully SyncML will solve this. Write to Nokia,
> >> Motorola, Siemans,
> >> LG, and the other phone manufacturers and let
> them
> >> know that Linux
> >> users want to purchase their phones and sync them
> as
> >> well. If we don't
> >> let them know that we exist, then they will not
> help
> >> us.
> >>
> >
> > Is there a discussion about a petition or some
> kind of
> > act.
> 
> There will be soon. I have another two weeks of
> exams before I start
> working on other projects. If you would like to help
> write to hardware
> and software manufacturers than let me know, I'll
> send more details in
> a few weeks.
> 

OK, it's not much time, so I'll wait.

> > Or who is doing syncml and who not and why not? I
> > think the companies need a regulation, so that if
> they
> > don't want to follow a standard (because greede)
> they
> > have to be forced to give the specs what they are
> > really doing or provide proprietary driver.
> 
> Cellphone companies in particular are both willing
> and wary of
> collablorating with their competitors. Bluetooth is
> the fruit of
> collaboration.
> 
> >> If you cannot find the addresses for the
> cellphone
> >> manufacturers, then
> >> write to me and I will find them for you. I write
> to
> >> one company
> >> (hardware or software) a week requesting Linux
> >> support, and you would
> >> be surprised at how willing hardware
> manufacturers
> >> would be to provide
> >> support when they see that people want it.
> >
> > not quite sure if you ironically mean it.
> 
> I am dead serious. I will soon start providing
> information for other
> to help as well.
> 
> > I have +/-
> > experience regarding support. Mostly they say.
> Yeah,
> > sure it's good to have but linux is not primary
> target
> > because it's small market and we are planing
> support
> > in future.
> 
> Exactly! If Linux users write to them then they will
> see that the
> Linux market is not so small. Furthermore, the Linux
> market is
> composed of much more technically-inclined people,
> who will buy their
> gadgets.

Exactly! It could save them also time and money I
think if they exchange ideas with other developers.
Besides if companies like SGI, NVidea, Intel, RealTek,
AMD, Palm etc etc support portability of their devices
to linux, why shouldn't mobile phone manufacturers not

> 
> > But surprisingly as you say there are more and
> more
> > that see the potential and really provide help.
> 
> Very much so.
> 
> > Also as I am really thinking to check if I can not
> > file a questioning about the legal possibility to
> file
> > a case in the EU commission for human rights and
> for
> > competition. I mean if the EU can vote for rights
> of
> > mice and chicken ... they should be able to push
> the
> > money makers to give us at least technical specs
> > needed to build a sync program in one month or so
> > after the phones are out, or even better to
> support
> > the developers to bring drivers together with
> phones.
> 
> I doubt if you can, but it would not hurt to try.
> Let us know what you find.

What I mean or have in mind is an infrastructure to
incorporate manufacturer details by phone model,
protocol and may be firmware version or so, because it
will be needed to keep in mind some software/hardware
bugs.

I think we should define a minimum requirements and
questions and demand to have them covered and answered
by manufacturers. From my point of view it's obvious
what we all need:
Calender, Contacts (Events), Notes, Todos and files
(data).
We get them give us the spec, fill up the framework
and get it done.

And this is exactly what opensync is doing - providing
the framework.

> 
> > The 0.22 version is much better than 0.19 but is
> > absolutely unusable (at least for me).
> >
> > The question now is how to sync one way as you do,
> > or/and how to sync outlook with kde?
> >
> > Do you have a suitable howto in mind?
> >
> 
> Give me two weeks to finish my exams and I will try
> to sync the phone.
> It is a Nokia, though. I will post details.
> 

No problem ... as I said I'm a little bit preoccupied
but still I've been struggling with this sync problem
for more than one year now and since I got involved
into the discussion I've seen what the problem really
is. So I'l sum up.

My short term goal is to find a way to sync somehow
the phones with each other and with linux.
The "one way" sync seems to be the only possible way,
because different phones have different fields.
Alternative solution would be to have only one phone
model for private and buziness, so fields match.

I've heard about symbian phones - they should sync,
but a discussion with Pawel and you proved the
opposite, so I am thinking what I'll do next to solve
my problem in short terms.

The discussion was VERY VERY helpful. Thanks!

Second goal seems to be to help you as far as I can to
get a robust framework for syncable devices.

I'll watch out to read more about opensync in future
and get a brief overview of the development and so on.
This will take also some time. I'm not very skilled in
programming C/C++ but can read and understand C/C++
code and write if needed. But we'll figure out later
how I can help.

Kind regards and thumbs up