1. Goals

1.1. Background

I hate the term framework. Frameworks are boring. Solutions are exciting. However it is important that Conduit, as a framework, is easy to develop for; how else are we expected to keep up with the social web apps that seem to appear each week?

Users (and developers) should be able to scratch their synchronization itch in the minimum amount of time available.

For example yesterday, using Conduit, I wrote a DataSink for my Xbox which syncs my liferea RSS feeds with Xbox Media Center in about 30 minutes.

1.2. Specific Goals

A GNOME user might store information in a wide variety of places on the desktop including:

• Evolution (email, calendar, address book)
• Tomboy (notes)
• Directories (important files)
• Photos
• Bookmarks (web and feeds)
• Music

The user might also use one of the many popular online services including :

• Delicious (bookmarks)
• Gmail (bookmarks, calendar, feeds, email, photos)
• Flickr (photos)

They probbably also own another electronic device such as :

• A second laptop, also running GNOME
• A mobile phone
• A Nokia 770/800
• A smartphone
• A PDA
• An iPod

Its hard enough keeping your information organised when limited to the desktop, let alone the added burden of keeping your information in sync with any of the other services or devices listed above.

I want Conduit to allow the GNOME user to keep their information in sync. Irrespective of the type, irrespective of the way in which that information is stored. Conduit should just work.

1.3. Use Cases

• Fred wants to sync his tomboy notes with google notebook
• Joey wants to sync whatever is on his desktop to his backpack account
• Nellie wants to keep a directory on his laptop and his desktop in sync
• Paul wants to keep his evolution contacts in sync with his mobile phone
• Steve wants to keep his gnome preferences in sync between his two computers

• John wants to keep a directory of OpenOffice documents in sync with copies held on Google Docs

• Pete wants to have photos saved to his server to be pushed to an external back up (usb hard drive / off-site ftp)

1.4. Relationship with Other Projects

• Conduit has not been designed to replace opensync or gnokii. Rather it should complement them. By being so easy to write plugins for Conduit should allow it to keep pace with all the new online data services. Work is ongoing to allow opensync plugins to be used in Conduit. See source:trunk/conduit/dataproviders/OpensyncModule.py