Re: [Opensync-users] Getting into KDE-PIM for KDE 4.2

[Dotan C. <dot...@gm...>]

2008/11/30 Daniel Gollub <dg...@su...>:
> http://opensync.org/wiki/OpenSyncDeveloperMeeting2008Berlin
>

Thanks, I had not read that.

> The last OpenSync developers 4 of 10 attendees were KDE-PIM hackers attending.
> So this is already pretty close - isn't it?
>

Yes, very close. I did not realize it.

> It's not about the missing communication between the KDE team or the OpenSync
> Team.
>
> It's just about that OpenSync is not ready!
> (This got also mentioned in your linked thread two times)
>

I did not think that there was a problem of ill communication, but
rather I was suggesting that the two projects try to synchronize
development a bit.

> The user expection for 0.40 a way too high - we will not meet them since
> they're quite "utopistic".
> The 0.40 release will not be a "everything works out of the box"-release. It's
> a: "we surivied a development-branch"-release.
>

That I am aware of, which is why I mentioned "KDE-PIM is very
important for OpenSync exposure and to actually have users using the
software.". I meant for finding bugs and such.

> If we would ship 0.40 today - and quickly adapt KitchenSync to have something
> in KDE 4.2, then people would get pretty annoyed about
> KDE/KitchenSync/OpenSync and freedesktop in general, due to the lack of
> quality of synchronization. And will never look back to KitchenSync or
> OpenSync since the very first impression is what counts. If the very first
> contact with OpenSync/KitchenSync ends-up in:
> - that your mobile gets unusable
> - your calendar/addressbook is full of duplicates
>
> Please understand that this kind of implementation needs pretty strong QA and
> only a complete implementation is worth to release as "stable".
>

From experience with past KDE-PIM syncing solutions, never has there
been one that I would call 'stable'! So I thought that beta (or even
alpha) quality software (as far as syncing is concerned) was not
forbidden in KDE-PIM. I personally intend to test and file bugs, and
it would be much easier for me to do that if there is integration
out-of-the-box.

> Right now there only fews plugins using "capabilities" to avoid duplicates.
> It's totally dangerous to sync anything without _full_ capabilities support -
> dataloss or duplicates are guaranteed.
>
> Since we don't have yet much real-life testing of the capabilities
> implementation, just unit-tests, we might need to change the plugin and the
> frontend API. So that's why the frontend development and the plugin
> development gets regularly starved.
>
> I hope this gives pretty much a picture whats going on. Since we slipped
> already several month we decided to only concentrate on high-request plugins.
> KDEPIM3 and 4 (aka. akondai-sync) is among those - as evolution and SyncML is
> (and some more i would have to look up). Right now we try to draft the final
> API and freeze it. The only changes i plan to allow after 0.39 (the last
> release before 0.40 - the stable release) must be very critical. This could
> be changes to fit the capabilities/discovery for frontend and plugins.
>
> The SyncML plugin is the hottest capabilities/discovery candidate - for this
> we might need more changes in libsyncml to get everything out of DevInf, to
> avoid duplicate entries. There will be no 0.40 before this is done (due to
> needed API changes)
>

I see. I know that you guys have a lot of work to do and I know that
it takes time.

> Your help is more then appreciated - we have tons of task to do till 0.40.
> Like reviewing and documenting the public API and collecting 0.2x
> configuration and write XSLT conversion stylesheet for smooth OpenSync update
> from 0.2x to 0.40. Last but not least testing, testing and testing.
>

About the only thing that I could help with is writing documentation,
and I intend on doing exactly that when I start configuring the
software. That should be when 0.40 is closer to stable. I am
subscribed to the list and wil try to keep abreast of developments.

Thanks for the detailed report. It is good to know that development of
Opensync is serious, as so many other sync frameworks have been
abandoned in the years that I have been using KDE.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

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