On I wrote Ubuntu One beta, on the subject of Ubuntu One.
Cool, the first bit of Ubuntu One is released, which is the project I've been working on since I started at Canonical. We're currently in a beta test for the file sharing part of U1; I haven't been working on that much, but the team who have are some cool guys. You can sign up for an invite at ubuntuone.com.
I'm looking forward to more stuff happening. I was interviewed along with Matt Griffin by the Ubuntu UK podcast guys last night about the project and what we've done so far (and they've got invites to give away, too). I'm also speaking about Ubuntu One at OSCON, and the abstract for my talk seems to be being passed around as information about what might be coming up in the future :-) Cool times ahead, especially since today I came a step closer to achieving enlightenment with lazr.restful, one of the libraries I'm using.
jay
MrCorey
This looks like a cool project, Stuart. I'm going to see if I can get my friend to ask for an invite with me, so that we can help with the final testing of it, since I only have one Ubuntu machine right now.
sil
jay: the frontend code and the wire protocols are GPL3/AGPL3 and the source tree should become available today, with any luck. There's currently no plan to open the server code.
Félim Whiteley
I'm guessing that the App is GTK/Gnome at the moment, is it Desktop agnostic enough a KDE port could be written easily enough ?
sil
Félim: there are three parts to the desktop portion of the filesharing app; the back end, the applet, and the Nautilus extension. The back end is almost entirely desktop agnostic; it stores keys in Gnome's keyring, but porting that to KWallet would be pretty trivial. The applet is Gtk, but wouldn't be too difficult to port, I wouldn't have thought. Obviously the Nautilus extension is Gnome-specific.
Ade
Just had a look at the site - looks like its a Dropbox clone that, at this point, is only packaged for Ubuntu. As a Fedora user I cant see any advantage in moving to it
Plus the server backend being closed source is a concern - I realise that Dropbox isnt Open source but would expect better of an Open Source company.
Its a damn shame that Novel more or less froze their iFolder development for anyone except their paying customers
Markus
Please fix the server of ubuntuone.com, it sends compressed data to browsers which don't recognize compression. Thanks in advance.
dextro
so... Ubuntu One is just like dropbox only exclusive to Ubuntu?
JGJones
Like Dropbox but for Ubuntu - all my systems are Ubuntu so I don't mind moving to UbuntuOne and even paying for it since it would support the company that create Ubuntu after all.
I wonder what are the future plans for UbuntuOne that would give this additional advantages over Dropbox? For example desktop profile being the same for all desktops along with things such as Compiz settings etc? This would be awesome.
Ade - FYI - Novell have opened their iFolder development now and things are once more active now and the latest iFolder (3.7.2) is available along with source code - look at http://www.ifolder.com - the delay was some sort of a legal "excuse" to ensure all code is properly GPL'ed or something.
sil
Markus: could you file a bug about that in Launchpad? I can't seem to replicate it, so your information would be really useful
sil
JGJones: I can't talk much about future plans, but the abstract for my OSCON talk gives some hints. :)
Flimm
Well I'm concerned about this bug:
http://launchpad.net/bugs/375345
Zac
Thanks for your good work, been waiting for this. Bring on the "ubuntu.com" email address! I will gladly pay for this.
I use Dropbox which is fast and not even one problem.
When it is offered for Ubuntu 8.04 I will change over to Ubuntu One.
Keep up the good work. Early days yet, more features as time goes on.
Mark
"Ubuntu One" name infringes on Ubuntu trademark policy and creates confusion:
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubunet/+bug/375345
Tack
I don't mean to be overly negative, but my opinion can be succinctly summed up as: no server == useless.
These online storage services seem to drop like flies in time. Not to mention, I simply do not trust my data with anyone else but me. Ubuntu One sounds like it would be very useful to me, if I can manage the server side as well.
By all means, offer the backend service and charge for it, but let those of us who are able run our own services. This will help foster a much richer community.
As it is, it reminds me of Eazel. And we all remember what happened to Eazel.
Greg K Nicholson
The server end is closed-source? Won't that massively diminish the “Ubuntu” brand? I'd expect this from a Canonical service, but not from Ubuntu.
Not happy
By creating a closed source product and marketing it as "Ubuntu" One, you are betraying yourselves and your community.
Ubuntu is Open Source but your services are closed source? Consider me to be a lost customer. I am going to switch distros now and so are many of my friends.
NO GPL? Forget it. Now way.
Will this service's backend and frontend be open sourced? Thanks.