[SyncEvolution] dynamic discovery of sync service in (W)LAN

Hi! In the current "direct sync" work we focus on Bluetooth for one reason alone: it is standardized, at least to a large extend. The specific settings for a device differ, but the transport is the same for all of them. device-specific setup. For synchronization via wireless, there are two options: * ad-hoc direct between device and PC: would work without any additional hardware, but uncommon * devices log into the same W-LAN: that's how devices typically connect to the Internet, but they won't know about each other, so direct sync without manual configuration becomes harder One possible solution for the second problem is DNS Service Discovery, as used by Apple Bonjour and Avahi on Linux: http://www.dns-sd.org/ I checked, so far no-one has bother to add OMA DS/SyncML to the list of services which can be discovered like that. There are several proprietary sync services listed, though. There are several data items which would have to be "discoverable": * IP address of host * port * path (for HTTP POST) * unique SyncML device ID (to distinguish multiple servers) * information about URIs IP address, port and path is something also used by existing services. The SyncML specific parts are those that we have to define in more detail. For example, how do we describe that URI "addressbook" is for "contacts"? How do we describe multiple address books, for example one for private use and company? This kind of self-description is not part of SyncML, leading to the current complexity involved in configuring clients and servers correctly. Just food for thought... I'm not ready to suggest a specific solution, but wanted to write down my thoughts so far. -- Best Regards, Patrick Ohly The content of this message is my personal opinion only and although I am an employee of Intel, the statements I make here in no way represent Intel's position on the issue, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of Intel on this matter.