is the server code available for download?

mfidelman
Is the server code available (as source or otherwise) - so people can play with local instances of the sync server?
  • ahoward
    The matter has come up before in several different contexts, though simply wanting to play around with a sync server may be a new one. There are methods to achieve most any practical end that don't involve messing around under the hood. I certainly wouldn't expect any sort of packaged, supported server product in the foreseeable future. What options there are or might be for someone who just wants to mess around with their own sync server, I don't know.

    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3574/share-on-local-servers/

    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3441/zotero-server/
  • dstillman
    The server code isn't currently available, though it will be eventually. As Andrew and the threads he links to note, however, there are no plans to produce a supported and/or turnkey server package.
  • mfidelman
    I'm actually more interested in whether the server is going to become a true open source effort - with a community and ecosystem around it, along with the possibility to extend it.
  • ftt
    @Dan: "though it will be eventually"
    ...great news!

    There are several research areas where using an offsite server would be a dealbreaker. There's no way a drug-development team could, for instance, use the Zotero Server unless it were located behind their firewall. Likewise any team that dealt in patient-confidential information. Even if the team's actual files are stored on a local WebDAV server, the risk that information could be leaked through the metadata alone would be enough to prompt some organizations' legal teams to say no -- which is a shame, because sync is a killer app.

    Do you know when the source is likely to be made available?
  • bdarcus
    Hmm ...
    The server code isn't currently available, though it will be eventually. As Andrew and the threads he links to note, however, there are no plans to produce a supported and/or turnkey server package.
    What do this mean? So the Zotero team has no plans to do this work. That's fine.

    But do you have a plan to encourage the sort of community development effort that would allow others to contribute to it?

    Do you have a vision of how a distributed ecosystem around the server functionality could, in theory, work?

    I guess I'm still seeing laconi.ca as a model here, both in terms of technology, and development model. So a vibrant developer community, and technology that allows both the centralized twitter-like approach to social networking, but allows that to be distributed across different installations.

    So it seems to me there should be some kind of plan to get to a turnkey solution.
  • bhy
    Just curious, so why not release these code right now? Release early is always good. By release I don't mean package and other staff, just open the SVN access is OK.
  • dmk
    I just want to second the last comment. You guys are doing an amazing job, but having a local server would be of real interest and I think a community would grow up around it really fast.

    I also see a number of things that the core zotero community might not want to do, but would be of interest to many (pardon me if some of these might already be in the works):

    1) Break out the bibliography generation code into a reusable library
    2) Couple that with a web server to automatically generate a web page of references (e.g., my lab wants to keep track of its publications and show them online)
    3) "Google Zotero" - by this I mean a completely online version of zotero - Endnotes Web meets Google Docs meets Zotero
    4) Mirrored servers
    5) Public databases of Zotero references
    6) Etc.
  • bdarcus
    @dmk: 1 is already being worked on; code is here. Also, I've recently blogged about some related issues.
  • sboegel
    Zotero is my favorite research tool and it is realy great. BUT. I can't use it in collaboration within my research-group unless we have a local zotero-server running..

    Issues are:

    1.) Confidential documents from research projects.
    2.) Availability and response time of the server.

    Though the plugin is open source one could write its own server, but that doesn't make sense at all.
  • adamsmith
    edited April 20, 2010
    Sean (of Zotero) has stated elsewhere that the release of the server code is going to happen within weeks. (I think he said "a week or two").
  • sboegel
    Thanks a lot. Looking forward to it.
  • alexuw
    here's the thread

    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/12265/when-will-the-server-source-code-be-released/

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