[development] Summer of Code Idea

[Dries Buytaert]

Hi Kyle,

On 02 Mar 2007, at 14:52, Kyle Cunningham wrote:

> I've become very interested in participating in the upcoming summer of
> code for Drupal and I have an idea about what I'd like to do with my
> proposal.  I was just wondering what you all thought.
>
> I was thinking of making a system that automatically mirrored files,
> scanned folders and otherwise made downloads available through the  
> use of
> metalinks (http://www.metalinker.org/).  So for instance, upload a  
> file
> with Drupal and then that file is automatically sent to mirrors and a
> proper metalink file created (or a download page, I suppose there  
> could be
> a number of preferences here).

I don't know metalinker.org (and I don't have internet access right  
now) but is metalinker.org's goal to distribute the bandwidth and to  
help guarantee availability (i.e. distributed file cache).  It sounds  
like a fun project, but I'm not sure it has enough 'meat' to keep you  
busy for 2 full months.  Plus, it might be too vendor-specific.

However, there are lots of things Drupal could do for popular  
websites with lots of media files -- i.e. staging, better versioning,  
advanced file management, fast protected files, integration with  
other services like S3, integration with transcoding systems, etc.

Maybe you can talk a little bit more about what you'd enjoy working  
on most, or what exactly you envision to accomplish?  We might be  
able to provide more specific directions when we can keep such  
information in mind.

My advice; keep brainstorming about this and try to make it a bit  
more generic/broader.  If you want to work on Drupal's file handling,  
we have a _ton_ of work for you.  Trust me. :)

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/