Git-annex assistant: Like DropBox, but with your own cloud

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistant-like-dropbox-but-with-your-own

by urza • 14 years ago

174 51 14 years ago

dt7• 14 years ago

This seems quite similar to SparkleShare: http://sparkleshare.org/

Edit: Oops, SparkleShare is mentioned on the page. Looks like this will work better with larger files. He does mention that SparkleShare is a GUI and not 'just a folder', although in my experience it is 'just a folder', like Dropbox.

tomku3• 14 years ago

Very cool, but I suspect that making it user-friendly and slick will end up being much more difficult than implementing the actual functionality was.

Edit: I have another question/concern, does the implementation in Haskell mean that the end product will have a runtime dependency on GHC or the Haskell Platform?

mikeplus48• 14 years ago

No, ghc produces statically linked binaries by default (-dynamic if you don't like that).

tomku3• 14 years ago

A quick check of the git-annex package in Ubuntu shows that you're right, no runtime Haskell dependency. I can only assume that the same will be true for the user-friendly "assistant". Thanks!

egonschiele• 14 years ago

This is true, but then those static binaries tend to be very big (50+ mb).

ZoFreX2• 14 years ago

Yeah, I am concerned by the plan to create a web front-end for managing files in one month, it seems... optimistic at best.

joeyh4• 14 years ago

The web frontend is functional.. took 2 weeks. Yesod rules.

(Still many weeks more polish and additional functionality, but kickstarter funded me for a whole year!)

rjzzleep4• 14 years ago

i'm not sure if git is the right thing to choose to version big binary files.

nodata• 14 years ago

Why? What is?

rjzzleep4• 14 years ago

because your local history is bound to get really big in a short period of time?

what is? well, I don't really think anything is. it works with svn and dropbox, but that doesn't mean that is a good choice either.

obviously git etc. is mainly designed for text files. i've long thought about what the right way to approach this issue is.

edit: will read more about annex

tomku3• 14 years ago

The project is based on git-annex, which is an extension that treats big binary files differently. Namely, it doesn't check in the file contents, so you don't get full-file versioning. You can find out more at http://git-annex.branchable.com/.

rjzzleep4• 14 years ago

hm ok, looks interesting, i'll have to read more about it's internals, thanks.

rmc• 14 years ago

Technically you can use the SHA backend to git-annex, so the actual file contents can be tracked by git, giving you "full file versioning". It's just not checked into git.

rektide• 14 years ago

Additionally there is a bup backend target for git-annex. Bup is targetted as a rsync-like backup service that can do incremental backups and ought work OK with large binary files. https://github.com/apenwarr/bup/

It was through Bup that I originally discovered git-annex.

urza2• 14 years ago

git-annex allows managing files with git, without checking the file contents into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when dealing with files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due to limitations in memory, time, or disk space.

-- http://git-annex.branchable.com/

rjzzleep4• 14 years ago

ok read, what's the advantage of using this over rsync? it's git + haskell + rsync, loads of dependencies, to make git do something that it's not designed to do. or am i missing something crucial?

rlpb2• 14 years ago

I'd love to hear Joey's answer on this question: why Haskell?

dons2• 14 years ago

He had said previously:

Joeyh: "One (git-annex) is a large-ish, serious work, and I have been very pleased with how haskell has made it better, even though there was a learning curve (took me two weeks to write the first prototype, which I could have probably dashed off in perl in two days), and even though I have occasionally been blocked by the type system or something and had to do more work.

One concrete thing I've noticed is that this is the only program where I have listed every single bug I fixed in the changelog -- because there have been so few, it's really a notable change to fix one!"

dan00• 14 years ago

Joey about the reusability of code: http://markmail.org/thread/nurcqm4yotgkmhbr

BruceIV• 14 years ago

Maybe this is really juvenile, but does the logo look like a bladder to anyone else?

timtadh• 14 years ago

I didn't look closely at the kickstarter page but I use gitdocs[1] which is basically works like dropbox but syncs to a git repository. It works ok for my (light) usage.

[1] https://github.com/bazaarlabs/gitdocs

[edit] It looks like git-annex solves the large binary blob problem with git (which I don't think gitdocs does) so maybe they could be integrated?

sciurus• 14 years ago

Joey blogs his progress on git-annex assistant in detail at http://git-annex.branchable.com/design/assistant/blog/

Here's a post from his personal blog that hints at how he can afford to work on this project for a year on only $20,000- http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/notes_for_a_caretaker/

peterwwillis• 14 years ago

So apparently he lives in the woods in a solar powered shack. I guess that would keep costs down.

http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/solar_day_2/ http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/solar_year/

joeyh4• 14 years ago

A solar powered 3-bedroom split-level house, but yeah. ;)

icebraining2• 14 years ago

Check once a day (especially on windy or stormy days) that the fridge is lit, by touching the black pipe sticking above it on the back. That's its chimney.

What...?

insaneirish• 14 years ago

Absorption refrigerator: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator

northband3• 14 years ago

I love it. Back in 1999-2001 I used to live in a shack on top of a mountain in Boone, NC which is less than an hour from Bristol.

Our network was driven by dual US Robotics courier modems bridged until the local phone company gave us DSL (we were located close to the switching facility).

There were 3-4 of us devs living there. We cut our own wood, got our water from a natural spring, drank lots of coffee and local beer, and coded 24/7.

Its there where I started to really grow as a dev because there was little distraction and the enviro was very inspiring.

My goal is to get back to the mountain (move my family) and focus on writing good code.

martinaglv• 14 years ago

You sir, were living a dream!

yesimahuman• 14 years ago

That sounds wild, you should blog about this if you haven't, I'm sure many here would love reading more :)

joeyh4• 14 years ago

That's awesome. I was doing similar 1.5 hours away at the time, and it can be hard to find local tech folks; wish I'd known about you. :)

jroll• 14 years ago

My favorite part of this is the slow Internet connection, which tells me that git annex will be optimized for poor connections. :)

skeletonjelly• 14 years ago

Similar to athletes training in mountainous regions

omgmog• 14 years ago

This seems to do what Sparkleshare does, except Sparkleshare uses Github - http://sparkleshare.org/

jt2190• 14 years ago

At first glance, OwnCloud seems to be similar:

http://www.owncloud.org/dev/sync-clients/

(That said, git-annex assistant looks very cool.)

urza2• 14 years ago

Yes they both looks good. git-annex has all the advantages of git, but is lacking windows support, whereas ownCloud is has better multi-OS support, because thanks to Qt it runs on Win/Mac/Linux, but uses csync as synch algorithm..

dwiel• 14 years ago

git-annex doesnt currently support windows, but changing that is on the roadmap provided on kickstarter

jblemee• 14 years ago

Not a new idea https://github.com/jcheype/GitBox https://github.com/jblemee/GitBox-Desktop

justjohn• 14 years ago

Nothing is ever a new idea, it's all about implementation and marketing. It will be interesting to see how git-annex assistant compares to the other products linked here when it's finished.

Johngibb• 14 years ago

This sounds similar in practice (not implementation) to AeroFS [1] which is a peer to peer syncing service. Just make one of your peers something cloud-based and reliable.

Very interesting space!

[1] https://www.aerofs.com/

rsync• 14 years ago

rsync.net will fully support Git-annex (it was brought to our attention a month or so ago by our friend Jason Scott).

We're excited about this project.

Gustomaximus• 14 years ago

This is similar to the features Opera launched in 2009

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/06/16/

Git-annex assistant: Like DropBox, but with your own cloud

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