From 8fcd5369775dcb4b825f6728c9df93369539a853 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Matěj Cepl Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 22:47:45 +0200 Subject: Initial rewrite of posts for pelican --- synchronization-sucks.rst | 87 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 87 insertions(+) create mode 100644 synchronization-sucks.rst (limited to 'synchronization-sucks.rst') diff --git a/synchronization-sucks.rst b/synchronization-sucks.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c177701 --- /dev/null +++ b/synchronization-sucks.rst @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ +'Synchronization sucks!' +######################## + +:date: 2011-04-14T12:08:01 +:category: computer + +One of my biggest pet-peeves in the free software world hit me again. +Whenever I asked my friends what are their biggest blockers against +switching to Linux, I get two questions. The first one is "Will my Word +documents work? Will I get something equivalent to MS Office?" And I am +happy to say that I can point to `Libre/OpenOffice`_ and with a kind +help_ from our friends in Redmont, I usually can persuade them that we +have a good alternative here. + +.. _`Libre/OpenOffice`: + http://www.documentfoundation.org/ +.. _help: + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_%28computing%29 + +The second question is though "Will it synchronize calendar/addressbook +with my cell phone?" and there I get always sad. Given the frequency +this question comes up and up again, I am constantly surprised how +little major Linux players do in this regard. The last time +synchronization reliably worked for me was when I was using Psion PDA +and {KDE,Gnome}-pilot. Not that there wouldn’t be enough trying +(OpenSync_, SyncEvolution_ mentioned by Adam and many others), but none +of them is really reliably allowing me to share my contacts, calendar, +and TODO list between my N900, Thunderbird on desktop and my server +(which runs `Zarafa 7.0beta3`_ currently). Currently the only working +solution for me is to use … ehm … ActiveSync_ from above mentioned +friends on the west Coast of the United States. Yes, it is quite +unreliable (especially with regards to emails) and it omits +synchronization of contacts in Thundebird, but at least I have calendars +more or less in sync. + +.. _OpenSync: + http://opensync.org/ +.. _SyncEvolution: + http://syncevolution.org/ +.. _`Zarafa 7.0beta3`: + http://www.zarafa.com/download-release +.. _ActiveSync: + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activesync + +In relation to `the recent news`_ I have chatted on IRC with Ludovico_ +and we agreed that actually well working Lightning_ and `Address book`_ +synchronization/sharing is must for any serious deployment outside of +hobbyist area. + +.. _`the recent news`: + http://blog.ascher.ca/2011/04/04/the-future-of-messaging/ +.. _Ludovico: + http://perso.hirlimann.net/~ludo/blog/ +.. _Lightning: + http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ +.. _`Address book`: + https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Address_Book + +And now I am reading `Adam’s blogpost`_ on his suffering with the state +of synchronization and I feel at least a bit of consolation that I am +not alone with my pain. I cannot add much to his blogpost than couple of +nits: + +.. _`Adam’s blogpost`: + http://www.happyassassin.net/2011/04/13/the-continuing-state-of-contact-calendar-synchronization-suck/ + +- I am not completely persuaded that synchronization is not the way to + go, or that the difference isn’t mostly lexical. At least git_ seems + to show that synchronization of two repositories is possible, and + synchronization of changes from cache to the central repository + doesn’t seem to be too different from synchronization. +- I am not sure how reliable the information is, but `some birdie`_ + told me that the next version of Zarafa (after 7.0) should have the + official support for CardDAV_ (CalDAV_ is already supported) and + I really hope it will be so. + +.. _git: + http://git-scm.com/ +.. _`some birdie`: + irc://freenode/zarafa +.. _CardDAV: + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CardDAV +.. _CalDAV: + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV + +I still hope that future is bright, but I really wish it was closer than +it is. -- cgit