[Box Backup] traffic statistics

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Dennis,

> >  ... and there might be a native Win32 client soon... :-)
> >
> Good news!
> 
> How is development progressing?  Is any help required, perhaps in
> testing? I read the posts in the maillinglist archive on the Win32 port,
> but aside from XML discussions, they mention a GUI client to bbackupd.  
> Does that mean that bbackupd will not be native win32?  Or am I missing
> a subtle (or not so subtle) detail here?

I am one of the people working on Win32 porting, although that is on hold 
right now until I get hold of the work others have done already in working 
towards this, and while I work on the GUI.

I haven't looked in detail at how much work has been done, and how much is
left to do, but I suspect that "in a few months, perhaps 6" might be a
good time to expect a native Win32 port to be available.

We will certainly be able to use some help with testing then, but right 
now, we need more coders.

Boxbackup itself is, and I imagine will remain, a daemon without a user
interface of its own (except a configuration file). I am building the GUI 
as a separate component for licensing and isolation reasons, and also for 
convenience, as Ben is a hard taskmaster and assuming that he were ever 
to allow GUI code into Box (unlikely), it would take aeons to make it 
solid enough for his satisfaction :-)

Believe me, this separation is a Good Thing(TM). You don't want your 
backup software to crash if the GUI crashes, and if the backup software 
crashes, you want something to be able to notify you about it. Different, 
specialised user interfaces can be made available, including networked and 
HTTP-administrated ones, using a generic interface that Ben and I are 
thrashing out right now (although my contributions have been somewhat 
lacking due to time constraints of a full-time job, Ben's have been 
excellent and put me to shame). 

I fully intend for there to be a good, stable, well-integrated, native
service/daemon port of Box to Win32, and a good, natural, easy-to-use,
cross-platform, open source GUI with all the functionality one would
expect, but loosely coupled to Box. 

And I am working on it, but at the pace I can manage, which isn't very
much. I could use some coders to help me with it, and later I could use
some help testing it too. If anyone can help, whatever your skill level, I
would greatly appreciate it, and I'm sure I'm not the only user who wants
these things for Box.

Hope this helps,

-- 
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 / __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson <0000 at qwirx.com> - Cambs UK |
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