Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/ubuntu-dot-mac

• Created: Date(2005-10-27T21:04:00Z) by JaneWeideman

• Contributors: JaneWeideman, BenFrancis

• Packages affected:

Summary

Look at possibility of starting a .Mac-like service for use across multiple Ubuntu computers (using Launchpad??)

Rationale

Scope

• Start off small, the feature list below is extensive but does not all need to implemented at once

Features

• Webmail (IMAP)
• Calendar (CalDAV)
• Address Book (LDAP?)
• News Reader (import/export OPML)
• Content Management (Public Homepage)
• Blogging
  • Text
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Friends list (Planet, FOAF)
• File store

  • Documents (OpenDocument renderer?)

  • Photo Album
  • Music store?
• Group functionality
  • User Management
  • Shared calendars and address books
  • Mailing lists/forums
  • Collaborative document editing and content management
  • Planet
• Guest Access (see use case)

Use cases

John uses Tribelife creates a three-way synchronized datastore on his parents computer, his computer, and his ISPs so they can keep a family photo album in f-spot and have a mutual backup. John's ISP runs Gallery, so John's friends can browse his family photos online.

Anna gets onto the wireless network at school. She starts the backup wizard and avahi locates a suitable place for her to setup a synchonized archive. Anna synchronizes ~/Documents. Later when she gets home, she adds that shared archive from home, although she has to enter in the domain name of the server because avahi no-longer can find it.

Frank is going camping with 3 friends. They keep a shared grocery list online. John makes a note on his cell phone to buy bug spray which is synced over bluetooth when he returns home. The note then travels over TribeLife to Jane.

Don leads a team of 5 people who take turns cleaning the break-room on alternate thursdays. John meets Sam in the hall and they decide to swap weeks so Sam can leave early to go to the football game. Sam makes the change in Evolution and all the other team mates get updated calendars as well.

Jack wants to look up Jill's work phone number which he stored in the address book on the computer in the kitchen at home, but he's in a public library.

Guest Access: Mark is in James' House and wishes to show him a file stored in his TribeLife account. Mark logs into James' Ubuntu computer as usual (even though he doesn't have an account) bu using his TribeLife ID and is provided with minimal guest access and his documents and settings being fetched on demand from TribeLife. Mark wishes to print the document but in order to get access to the printer James must enter his username and password to grant elevated access. - mark.goodall@gmail.com

Design

The server should be used as a data store which allows both access via a web interface and access via the desktop using technologies like IMAP, CalDAV and LDAP.

• A wizard could be added to Evolution for such a service like with Mail.app and .Mac

• Users should be able to use any GnomeVFS place to store their TribeLife (mainly davs)

• A synchronization service should be responsible for moving around lumps of EDS and file data.
• QOS should be used to allow large amounts of data to eventually be synced even over slower broad-band connections.

• gconf should be capable of layering on settings from TribeLife at login.

• TribeLife should be able to exist not only on a web server, but removable storage as well.

• Anyone can host their own TribeLife services

• TribeLife should assist users in registering their computer with a dynamic dns provider if need be.

Implementation

Some existing packages to look into:

• iFolder for file sharing - not sure if it could used on a large scale

• [http://www.hula-project.org/Hula_Project Hula Project] for email, calendar and address book

• [http://www.horde.org/ Horde Project] for webmail and much more

• [http://phpgroupware.org phpGroupWare] for email, calendar, addressbook, forums and much much more

• [http://www.planetplanet.org/ PlanetPlanet] for Planets and blog friends lists (and possibly newsreader?)

• [http://drupal.org/ Drupal] for content management, blogging, forums/mailing lists, user management, photo album.

• [http://loudblog.de/ LoudBlog] for podcasting

• [http://gallery.menalto.com/ Gallery] and [http://coppermine-gallery.net/index.php Coppermine] for photo album

Code

Data preservation and migration

• Data Importer
  • OPML for newsfeeds
  • IMAP copier for email
  • iCalendar files for calendars
  • Documents

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec