[development] Google Gears

[Syscrusher]

On Thursday 31 May 2007 08:16, Robin Monks wrote:
> The weird thing is, with the dawn of cheap broadband, and wifi-covered
> cities, planes, trains and buses, noone is actually offline to enjoy this
> now.

As one who travels a lot on business, I have to disagree. Specifically,

* A fair number of airports that offer wifi only do so at an exorbitant
  fee. Instead of spending a few thousand dollars on hubs for a multi-
  billion-dollar airport, they leave it to private contractors who by
  definition have a profit requirement.

* I know of at least one international airport where the wifi contractor
  is a local company rather than a large multinational like Verizon or
  T-Mobile, meaning anyone who lives outside that community has to pay
  for an account just to use their wifi once. (My guess is that
  someone's brother-in-law is a city alderman...)

* Wifi in hotels can be spotty, because (1) they don't always have enough
  hubs in place to cover the building and (2) the local staff usually
  don't know how to fix problems.

* Wifi on aircraft is not yet widely available, and where available is
  almost never free.

* I've heard about commuter trains with wifi, but I've yet to be on one
  even though I've recently been in both NYC and San Francisco. Perhaps
  this is yet another area where the enlightened Europeans and Asians
  are leaving the US in the dust. (And that is intended as a snark at
  my own country, not Europe or Asia. We in the USA just don't "get it"
  about the economic benefits of public wifi.)

* Rural areas are still not well-served for broadband Internet of any kind.
  Try getting broadband in the Rocky Mountains, away from large cities.

Robin, I really wish the world you envision were here, or that I could believe
it's coming soon, but I'm afraid it's a long, long way off.

To bring the discussion back to Drupal, I think offline capabilities would be
a very strong feature to add to Drupal. On my largest Drupal sites, registered
users are allowed to submit comments and stories, but nothing is published
without editorial review. That being the case, the ability to suck down the
editorial queue, review and edit offline, then upload the changes including
scheduling items (using scheduler.module) for publication would be
doubleplusgood.

Scott

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