Gnome 3.8 Features: Integrate ownCloud in Gnome!

This post was made with another stylesheet and it might be messed up!

It wasn’t long till a “just a discussion” in Gnome MLs jumped as official feature for Gnome 3.8!?! The Open Desktop finally hangs the Open Cloud and Gnome once again is proud to prove that supports the Open Source, it supports the Cloud!

The idea was simple, ownCloud offers the same services as Ubuntu One and DropBox (actually it offers more) in a free platform that anyone can easily install and customize according to his/her needs. So why don’t use that?

integrate ownCloud in Gnome

Debarshi Ray is the hacker to implement this feature:

“ownCloud is free software that allows you to build your own “cloud” service on your own infrastructure. It offers access to your files, calendar and address book via WebDAV, CalDAV and CardDAV, apart from offering a web UI that can be accessed using a web browser. Similar to Ubuntu One, but with free software on the server side. I think GNOME and ownCloud share the same goals to build a free computing environment for everyone, so this makes a lot of sense.

Prospective integration points would be Files and Documents over WebDAV, and Evolution over CalDAV and CardDAV”.

The accounts will be set from GOA, and ownCloud will be able to sync with Gnome Documents, Nautilus and Evolution Data Server (that also includes the upcoming Gnome Calendar App).

By the way, Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers.

Learn more [at] Gnome Live: Integrate ownCloud in GNOME

ownCloud

Ok, there is no reason to talk about the ownCloud, everyone knows it, right? The question is if it is worth to use it over the commercial services. The short answer would be no, because the cost to have a descent cloud file server would be around 60euros (~100$) a month, while instead you can use a commercial with around ~5$.

you can try a live demo of owncloud in their page!

But.. I use it for around one year now for companies that I work for, with huge success because:

It gives full control of your data

This cost is insignificant for companies

It is easy customizable

It can run in private Networks

It can be easily transferred over servers and export/import massive data

In the end of the day, it doesn’t need to explain the benefits of Open Source (specially in Cloud data-storage), I guess?

ownCloud features

ownCloud is a software suite that provides a location-independent storage area for data (cloud storage). The project was launched in January 2010 by KDE developer Frank Karlitschek to create a free alternative to commercial cloud providers. In contrast to commercial storage services, ownCloud can be installed on a private server at no additional cost.

File storage in conventional directory structures (also via WebDAV)
Cryptography
Synchronization of personal computers
Calendar (also as CalDAV)
Task scheduler
Address book (also as CardDAV)
Music streaming (through Ampache)
User and group administration (via OpenID or LDAP)
Sharing of content across groups or public URLs
Online text editor with syntax highlighting and code folding
Bookmarking
Photo gallery
PDF viewer (using pdf.js)
Viewer for ODF Files (.odt, .odp, .ods)

planned services

So that ownCloud justifies the term cloud, synchronization between different ownCloud servers is being worked on. In addition, the platform will be expanded to include the following services:

Apps for smartphones and Tablet (experimental Android client available)

Source: Wikipedia: ownCloud

is this feature important to us?

One more step towards to Open Source Cloud Services, so yes, it is of great importance :)

This is a dummy YouTube demonstration with Nautilus / ownCloud sync that I had made some days ago.

Oh, and even if this feature is scheduled to be included in Gnome 3.8 that doesn’t necessarily means that will make it. Postpones is a favorite habit of Gnome :) ..So, we have to wait for the feature freeze of 3.8 (February, 18).

Is Diaspora* coming next? :)

foobar

I always have troubles recognizing Hubert with his clothes on. It feels so … unnatural for him.

I haven’t used OwnCloud yet but I’m definitely going to give it a try when 3.8 is out. I fortunately already have a server. I always felt there is an open server-side part missing for gnome.

However, this Cloud-thingy is missing a online jabber client and a mail client. :)

alex285

He is professor Hubert, or simply Professor ..but not just Hubert! Hmm, also I think they call him Prof. Farnsworth rather Prof. Hubert.

Régis FLORET

60€ for a descent cloud server ??? I don’t think so. You can find server for rent starting at 19€/m (25US$). I’m a customer of them and really happy with there services. I don’t want to do some hidden ads (but it starts with H ends with ner.com and inside there’s etz :)

alex285

I use hetzner (you can freely name it!) a lot. The bad thing with them is that if you are on unmanaged server they don’t even say you hello. Managed servers starts from 70-80euros I think, plus the set up fee, plus it takes 2 days to open you a server, plus there isn’t a live chat. They are really cheap, but their support is awful.

Régis FLORET

I’m very happy with them. Ok they never say “hello” ok, they don’t have live chat but they are very responsive on any problems. One day the server died, they replace it with no cost in the hour.

I rent a core i7 + 16 Gb of RAM and 2x3Tb in RAID 1 for 46 €/mo (not living in continental EU).

Ok I have sysadmin skills not everyone have that kind of skills.

BTW Thanks for this article. I’ve just install ownCloud on my box and I needed a GNOME client.

alex285

Aw by the way with 60$ I was meaning hetzner as is the cheapest host company I have found.

http://twitter.com/Aeyoun Daniel Aleksandersen

I am really looking forward to full CalDAV/CardDAV support in Evolution. The minimal effort implementation that it ships with today is too buggy and causes many problems. This has been the one remaining roadblock for me to move from OS X to Linux for everyday use.

There are many other open source CalDAV/CardDAV implementations better than ownCloud out there. Google opened their CardDAV service just last week! It is misleading and limiting that the article is focused only on one server provider.

alex285

I am not comparing WebDAV extensions here, am I? :)

http://twitter.com/mimurrayy murrayy

I pay 18€/month for a rootserver with 1 TB diskspace. Beats every single commercial cloud-sync service out there!

alex285

Name?

http://twitter.com/mimurrayy murrayy

OVH budget server:
http://www.isgenug.de
or
http://www.kimsufi.co.uk

Might be Europe-only tough.

alex285

Thank you!

Craig

You gotta look harder. You can get a good VPS for 10-15 Euro/month or a cheapo for as little as 5 Euros.

LorgnocOspYe

“official feature for Gnome 3.8!?!” It is still just a feature proposal, not official until recognized as such by the release team. But, yeah, it will most likely be. :D

alex285

They also have a proposal page, but this is on feature page. Ofc isn’t a goal that’s why I give the link about feature freeze. I hope people don’t misunderstand.

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Sriram Ramkrishna

@alex285:disqus I’ll be doing my best to make sure that we get owncloud integration going. We have support from owncloud folks. In addition, I’m working on getting a gnome.org owncloud server going so that rishi can hack against it. Debarshi and I are very enthusiastic in seeing this happen.
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