Does owncloud really requires a server-side backend?

Hi planetkde, hi readers from planet gnome (so called aliens1),

I’ve just stumbled upon a blog post dealing with a potential collaboration of KDE and gnome to initiate a replacement for dropbox, called ownCloud.

There are already thoughts about possible GSoC projects giving attention to the gnome/KDE frontend clients and to the server backend.

Nice idea, but in my humble opinion there is a problem, at least for me: I haven’t a hosted root server, but a lot of unix accounts with user webspace, where it is impossible to run any kind of background services/daemons.

Think of:

  • university accounts
  • (scientific) institute accounts
  • accounts from your IT related work

Think of people, who probably use linux.

In the case that ownCloud is meant to be the centre of all data synchronisations, it would be sad that those people who only have webspace cannot take advantage of it.

So I encourage the developer to design the ownCloud in a way that makes the server-side backend software only optional, but not a requirement.

This would be similar to git, which can use a server side backend (git://), but is also satisfied with a simple sftp connection (ssh://). (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

After all you might want to read an article about the disadvantages of SaaS published by http://www.gnu.org. Exaggerated message in one sentence: Don’t get dependant of other people server services. :wink:

  1. Just a joke. Don’t take it serious. ↩︎