Mobile Open Source

Funambol for BlackBerry
If your RIM smartphone is connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), you very likely already received 'push' email, at least from your corporate Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise mail account, and can sync PIM data such as calendar and contact information via USB.

But users who want push 'email' for web mail and OTA PIM sync have largely been out of luck... at least until Funambol released its latest free, open-source software.

The software consists of two parts: a push email component and PIM sync component. The push mail functionality works with popular web mail services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail and it also supports any POP or IMAP server, according to Funambol.

The connector enables Funambol sync clients to synchronise their contacts and events with the SugarCRM database. SugarCRM is a complete open-source CRM solution with its own internal contact lists and meeting schedules per user. The connector allows a SugarCRM user to sync his mobile device, in both directions, with his contacts and meetings stored in SugarCRM.

I started a new company and we decided to try SugarCRM as a customer management system. We wanted to be able to sync our meetings and contacts in Sugar to our PIM software and mobile devices. We have a mixed environment (Windows, Linux, various mobile devices) so an open sync system was needed. I discovered Funambol and found that it had an existing SugarCRM connector. I tried using it, found a few problems, started digging into the source and (to cut a long story short) was asked to take over maintaining the connector. So I'm building on the foundations laid by others.

I'm an experienced Java programmer, but the end-to-end sync process involved many technologies that I was not familiar with. Web services, php, the whole Funambol integration. I first had to learn how to monitor soap requests using the Axis tcpmonitor, work out how to debug the SugarCRM soap interface (written in php). Then delve into the underlying Sugar d/b calls, work out the mapping of results into Contact and Calendar objects, and understand the build/package process of a Funambol connector. All in limited time. I'm now proud of understanding the sync process, and being able to very quickly respond to issues and fix them.

A steep learning curve! A lot of concepts and standards to assimilate before becoming productive. But the experience has been extremely rewarding, it's great to have people from all over the world asking questions, reporting problems, requesting changes and then at the end, saying thank you!

First, pick a connector for a system you understand well, so you are only learning one end of the system from scratch. My first big problem was having to learn two systems (Sugar and Funambol) and a new language (php) and a new technology (SOAP). Have a straightforward environment (use the Java client for testing, don't go straight off and try and sync with outlook). Put lots of debug logging in your code. Try to have each part of the connector testable in isolation. Look at as much other code as possible.

Item 1 (apart from ensuring that it works reliably) is to allow sync of shared data. Currently the connector only syncs contacts that are owned by the specific user, but sugar allows contacts to be ownerless and therefore visible by all. I also want to look at email sync, but this is a whole new can of worms! I also want to ensure that I can support multiple versions (of both SugarCRM and Funambol) with the minimum of maintenance effort, by making as much as possible driven by configuration.

I also want to look at moving to maven, and building better automated testing tools.

This is a post about freedom. The freedom to keep your data for yourself and the freedom to run free software. You should be able to reclaim and enjoy these freedoms also when using web applications.

If you are a supporter of the free software movement, you can easily opt for Gimp instead of Photoshop, or Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. You can also protect the privacy of your data by using the many encryption tools that are available (GPG, TrueCrypt, …). But when it comes to web applications things get complicated.

The benefits of web apps (ubiquitous access, seamless upgrades, reliable storage, …) are many, but quite often users lose their freedom to study, modify and discuss the source code that powers those web apps.

Furthermore, we are forced to trust web applications provider with our data (bookmarks, text documents, chat transcripts, financial info, … and now health records) that no longer resides on our hard disks, but are stored somewhere “in the cloud”.

It’s not a nice situation when you have to chose between convenience and freedom.

Let me be clear: web apps are great and I’m in love with them. But I think it’s time to ask for more freedom and more privacy. Here is a three step plan to achieve both these results.

1. Choose AGPL
2. Add zero-knowledge sauce
3. Build a smarter browser