BrainShare: iFolder

Calvin Gaisford works on iFolder at Novell, and explained iFolder and how the Open Source project and the Novell product differ. I must admit, at first I was a bit concerned about the workgroup solution (as the Open Source project is called) being a bit crippled, but it seems it should do everything I'm likely to want to use it for. The enterprise solution (the Novell product) differentiates by bringing backup solutions, policies, directory services, support, and so forth.

I didn't know much about iFolder beyond what it does before I went to the session. I was quite surprised that the iFolder project uses SQLlite for its database.

Simias is the system that does all the replication and file system and metadata and so forth, which itself is Open Source. iFolder in some ways is just the front-end for Simias.

iFolder (and Simias) is written in C#, using mono for .NET, and uses gtksharp for native widgets on Linux.

The same iFolder client (the Open Source one) can access the enterprise server; which means not having to redeploy clients if you upgrade. Nice.

I intend to research having an iFolder on my server, and synchronising a set of documents to the machines I use. Since Simias is GUI-free, it may be possible.