Akademy 2005

KDE-PIM BoF Minutes

Agenda:

• Porting to Qt4/KDE4
• Merging Branches
• Redesigns
• Syncing
• Groupware Server
• Messaging
• Offline Mode for KMail/etc
• Meetings
• Alliances
• Website
• Artists
• 3.6
• 3.5 usability emergency surgery

Porting to Qt4/KDE4

• Check diff between 3.5 branch port and trunk (Ingo)
• Copy 3.5 to trunk (danimo)
• Merge Getting things done (SoC), kalle and proko2 changes
• Open trunk for KDE4 development
• use kdelibs from before the restructuring of libs
• Goal: Do library mode, more kdepim libs tgo kdelibs
• Start now

Merging Branches

• SoC branches
• Scripting (merge later)
• Getting things done (merge to trunk after copying)
• Living KDE (merge later)
• Proko2 (till needs to merge 2-3 patches)
• Kalle (no problem)
• OpenSync branch (no problem, merge later)
• KoPI branch (carefully migrate individual patches)
• Two porting strategies
• Tag of current kde libs and port pim based on this tag
• "Wildwest" based on current trunk (risky)
=> we'll for now go with the tagged version, but want to switch later to seize the possiblity of taking influence in lib development

Redesign

• KResource
• libkabc (e.g. async loading)
• stabilize libkcal (Reinhold)
• General access to PIMdata between KDE PIM applications
• Design APIs (Cross-Desktop, Evo DS, etc., check Evolution IPC, maybe use DBUS)
• UI redesign for resources, multiple calenders

Syncing

• OpenSync meeting held before aKademy: Armin Bauer, Cornelius Schumacher, Holger Freyther and Tobias König attended.
• Goal: make OpenSync standard on the Linux desktop
• OpenSync is the successor to MultiSync. They have separated the GUI and the backend.
• written in C and glib internally
• Results
• C++/Qt wrapper
• KDE GUI
• KDE PIM plugin (in branch)
• Existing Plugins
• File
• Palm
• SyncML
• "KDE is the best GUI implementation" (Cornelius)
• OpenSync is the way to go
• New KitcheSync will replace KitchenSync, KSync, Kandy (which will not be ported to trunk), and eventually KPilot
• Till says "make a fuss on the dot, send clear message that KDE has decided to move to OpenSync"
• Will asked "should we use OpenSync for syncing resources and groupware
servers" -- "No because specialized sync algorithms can do a better job, risk of dataloss if the index is broken, however some features of OpenSync are attractive, we should try to provide better groupware middleware and reduce code duplication"

Groupware Servers

• Get rid of all of the half-working Exchange connectors, reason: we don't have either vendor support nor resources to do it properly, so better not support it. Still possible to readd it, if somebody commits to it fulltime.
• Result: Disable from compilation in 3.5, remove in 4.0
• Stress commercial support makes effective groupware resources possible.
• Concentrate on working resources

Messaging

• IM, VoIP, other messaging important to KDE PIM
• improve integration of messaging - kopete, kcall, etc
• consider move of kopete to KDE PIM - consult kopete devs
• reconsider KIMProxy design, esp. wrt DBUS and standardization
• Will leads the way
• Integrating Kopete into kdepim?

Offlinemode in KMail/etc.

• Abstraction of KMail backend
• General offline mode (multiple online modes)

Meetings

• Osnabrück 4 would be a great idea (Jan 06)
• Alternative: Chemnitz (March 06)
• Possibly: KDE-NL again
• probably no need for further meetings this year

Alliances

• raise awareness that KDE has strong commercial support
• PR for existing collaborations
• Joint announcements
• Get KDE PIM supporters into KDE e.V.

Wesite

• split into developer/community and user/promo site has succeeded.
• Need artists (ask inside Novell?, Will)
• Need webmaster (IRC? Users List?) (danimo)
• Direction is ok

Artists

• kde-artists doesn't seem to work for us
• Oxygen for 4.0
• Keep what we have for 3.5 (unless we can get something really better)

3.6

• KitchenSync release beginning nexr year (with OpenSync 1.0)
• SoC : GTD, maybe more
• Translations?
• Coordinate with other modules

3.5. usability emergency surgery

• Some small improvements (usability)
• Resource selector improvements needed in KOrganizer and KAB
• Talk to the usability people
• Fix mailloss bug (Online IMAP)
• Everyone: please look for things that are obviously horrible,
by starting a session with a clean .kde/