CIFS will be strategic in some settings, but not included in kernel

[Martin Langhoff]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 11:37 PM, George Hunt <georgejhunt at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been wanting to create an Activity that would add value and bridge the
> MS-linux gap. I discovered that pyNeighborhood is open sourced, written in
> python, uses gtk, runs on the XO, discovers a diverse MS  network, and in my
> opinion has an acceptable UI.

Just avoid making a bridge for that specific gap. :-) If you focus on
making something that also happens to work on Windows, then it will
work if the other machine is running windows, linux, or osx.

There are so many portable ways of doing things that it's not worth
spending 5 miuntes in thinking about unportable solutions. Specially
when we're wanting to reach high.

> WebDav is new to me, and interesting. I'm thinking of the kids in city
> schools, where a parent has a desktop machine that is not an XO, and printer

I rewrote that slightly :-)  - also, schools might have conventional
network printers.

Printing will probably be handled via cups. We are missing a lot of
infrastructure there (automagic configuration, quota mgmt, some admin
tools, ui), and it does make sense to start building it. Just not
using platform-specific tools - cups can take care of interoperating.

WebDAV is very interoperable. Windows will happily be a client, or a
server for it.

>. Is it your idea that
> WebDAV client would exist on the XO and the parent would download a WebDAV
> server, and install it on his/her XP machine?

If the 'home computer' is MSWindows-based, I suspect that the IIS
version that is published rebranded as "PersonalWebServer" by MS
includes an easy to use WebDAV server. Might need a bit of packaging
and prettyfying. Apache2 can also run on Win32 platforms.

If the machine is OSX or the many linuxen that are entering the home
as 'media centers' or just "daddy's machine", they can be WebDAV
servers easily too, running Apache.

> Is there someone with WebDAV experience and enthusiasm who I could
> correspond with?

Lots! WebDAV is implemented very widely - google about, and you'll
find tons.  I've grafted a WebDAV server into Moodle not long ago.

cheers,



m
-- 
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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