[Telepathy] File Sharing Utility

[kartik rustagi]

Yes indeed the task is not trivial and definitely not small in
magnitude. After intense discussion on IRC the whole proposal has been
rewritten. It seems like sharing file has been part of Sugar even
before it actually existed:
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2007-August/003323.html

It has not been actually realised till now. Most of the work in this
project will be for Telepathy. The major task involved will be:
1) To design a TP interface to announce files, retrieves files from
contact and request a file
2) Understand XEP-0214 and Telepathy enough to write a Telepathy
Interface Specification for the functionality of XEP-0214.
3) Implement that interface in Gabble.
4) XEP-0214 only gets you us as far finding out what files a person
has.  Step 4 is writing python code to actually retrieve those files,
using Telepathy's existing FileTransfer API.
5) Modify the Sugar interface (probably Journal and Neighbourhood
view) to expose this functionality to the user.

This will be not easy to implement. On another front I was thinking
that since Telepathy is a associated with Freedesktop.org which can
participate in Gsoc under both Gnome and KDE:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2008-March/009310.html

Therefore I can apply for this project through this channel too. The
revised proposal for Gnome will have the following tasks:
1) To design a TP interface to announce files, retrieves files from
contact and request a file
2) Understand XEP-0214 and Telepathy enough to write a Telepathy
Interface Specification for the functionality of XEP-0214.
3) Add the UI features to Empathy

This proposal will need the support of Telepathy community. One thing
I will like to say is whichever way I will be implementing this (Sugar
or Gnome), adding this feature to Sugar will be a derivable (maybe
after Gsoc, if I get this proposal accepted through Gnome).

I will be happy to work either way (Sugar or Gnome) and wish to apply
for both. Here is the proposal for sugar again:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File_Sharing_Utility

This proposal would not have been conceptualised without the
recommendations/suggestions of the community. I will be grateful if I
can get more of these.

Thanks
Kartik Rustagi


On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Guillaume Desmottes
<guillaume.desmottes at collabora.co.uk> wrote:
> Le mardi 24 mars 2009 à 09:01 +0530, kartik rustagi a écrit :
>> Hi,
>>
> Hi,
>
>> I have proposed to develop a File Sharing Utility for the Sugar
>> Platform as a part of this years Gsoc. I have been told by developers
>> their to ask for comments from you guys since this utility will
>> essentially be built as an extension to telepathy, being ported to
>> Sugar afterwards. To get an Idea of the functionality kindly check my
>> application at:
>> *http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File_Sharing_Utility
>
> The fact that your proposal doesn't mention Telepathy at all scares me a
> bit.
> Telepathy is the Sugar communication framework so these features should
> definitely be implemented in it.
> It would be good if you could explain what are you plans regarding TP.
>
> You briefly mentioned XMPP but didn't give any clue about how your
> protocol would look like. Which existing XEP's do you plan to use? Are
> their enough? If not, how do you plan to extend them?
>
> Which network topology are you going to focus on? Server mode (Gabble)
> or Serverless (Salut)?
>
> The telepathy-components used in Sugar are written in C
> (telepathy-{gabble, salut}). How are your C skills?
>
> Did you discuss with the Sugar guys what their requirements are for such
> features? This is very important to ensure that our Telepathy API will
> be able to fit their needs.
>
>
> You have to be aware that this project is a lot of work and is far from
> being trivial. More details from you on these technical aspects would
> make me feel more confident.
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>        G.
>
>
>