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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

"polls at intervals and either pulls from the remote repository, or adds, commits, and pushes from the local one"

What does the dropbox client do that is significantly different from this? Does dropbox do block level replication or something?

NB I use dropbox and like it, but I do like the idea of the server component being completely open.

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"What does the dropbox client do that is significantly different from this?"

Using inotify (linux). Polling doesn't scale.

I'd assumed the "poll" there was the connection to the server - I hadn't even thought about polling for modified files!

Yeah, I'm looking into inotify to see how I can implement that with Ruby. Would definitely be nicer than simply polling the directory.

Try rb-inotify (linux) and rb-fsevent (os x):

https://github.com/nex3/rb-inotify

https://github.com/thibaudgg/rb-fsevent

The biggest thing that comes to mind is native clients for every computer and device I own (PC with both Windows & Linux on dual-boot, Mac desktop & laptop, iPod Touch, iPad), complete with nice file browsers, integrated media playing, etc. I was going to put that in my original comment, but thought it was somewhat obvious: at first glance, it seems to me that this would require the most work if you wanted to actually clone Dropbox.

That, and the nicely designed website, marketing copy, clever social/viral features, etc.

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