Zotero will soon offer the ability to store and sync attachments in user-defined storage (i.e. WebDAV) while keeping item metadata synchronized via the Zotero server. Would this configuration meet your needs? If not, could you perhaps elaborate on your concerns? We're committed to protecting the security and privacy of all of our users and would like to learn more about your needs.

Sean,

Thanks for your reply. User-defined storage (WebDAV) would be nice... I'll echo Rintze's question, might that also include local or network drives?

Our concerns deal with the subject matter we are collecting, not the security and privacy offered by Zotero (we trust you). This news release of the grant describes the project in a bit more detail - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/news/bridgeway_grant.html.

Out of curiosity... any plans to also allow us to store and sync metadata in user-defined storage?

My request was about sharing/syncing files, instead of the storage of files within a local copy Zotero. Within my research group, files are mostly shared via network drives, instead of via any WebDAV solutions. In this setting, it would be easiest, if I wanted to share the files I collected in Zotero with other Zotero users, if I could just appoint a network drive for sharing/syncing purposes.

In my turn, I would like to echo mlisle's remark. Due to the confidential nature of the work in my research group (most research is performed in collaboration with industry, and we want to avoid giving away research leads), we would like to keep the information we collect as private as possible. This also extends to metadata, as even the specific collections of papers we collect could reveal our research focuses.

In addition to WebDAV, we're also now moving toward allowing for the specification of a local or networked storage location to synchronize attached files. Thanks for the suggestion. We do not have any immediate plans to develop and distribute a local Zotero server for the local synchronization of metadata.

I would like to echo Rintze's comment about the need for confidentiality. I am in a similar situation where we do research in dug development. I can imagine other people from the medical and legal fields also will have concerns about privacy and confidentiality with the data (even the metadata) stored on remote servers controlled by third party. I hope the zotero developers will consider allowing local installation of the Zotero server.

I'll echo this as well. We may end up using Zotero on a classified network that's not connected to the public Internet - hence synchronization has to be done on a local server.

I concur. While I like the idea of creating a Social Bookmarking sort of thing out of Zotero data, it would really be nice to be able to sync both files and metadata to our own server.

i think the same way there is a need for some kind of local server or at least a way for implementing one , we want to use our liferay portal webdav features for our users to be able to sync their data to their accounts and presses their data for them , this is perfectly possible for attachments but not for the metadata part which is actually the important part of the data , is there any document on zotero data syncing or some one which can help us to sync zotero metadata , so far i understood that zotero metadata are also synced with a secure webdav account but the url cant be changed from inside the interface ,ill be needing some guidance to be able to develop my way through .

In my research group we use aigaion to have a shared library. I'd love to use zotero instead because a lot of things are so much quicker. But we definitely would need a share on a local server to use it in our group.

I strongly agree with all those who ask for a possibility to have a local server. We too would only switch to a solution where we control the server. That's not a question of trust. We simply need the flexibility and security that comes with a dedicated server (e.g. we would need the information even if we loose our internet connection).
Until now the lack of a server prevents us to switch to zotero (even if we really would like to).

At the moment we are working with Bibus that connects to sqlite and mysql databases. We use both versions depending on what we need and how many users have to work together. This solution may is not as convenient as Zotero in some aspects but gives us what need most: An easy solution to share references and work together with the same references.
We had a discussion here about Refworks too. But our conclusion was that we will not hand over our precious data and research to a server we do not control. And as far as I can see this will remain so for a few years to come.
Because of many conversations about this topic and 2 big threads in the Zotero forums I think that many users share this point of view.

I won't be of much help as I am an administrator and user but not a programmer. I also do not have a big budget to be of any help. Of course I could and would advocate this at my university if the code is available.

I don't think that things must be easy. I appreciate that a server is a complex piece of software and that it takes some time to get things like that up and running. And with time people share their knowledge, help improving routines and write wikis.

Yet I may share some thoughts. I did not realize that the vision of Zotero has shifted that far. As I first get to know Zotero I had high hopes (2-3 years ago). At that time a server was an essential part of the vision and I had not the impression that it should be closed source or centralized. I very well realized that it took far more time to develop the teamwork features but that is understandable and I am really looking forward to the new possibilities. But if I now hear that the only thing that would make me and a lot of colleagues switch to Zotero may will never come I feel as I did bet on the wrong horse all the time.
BTW: A local server would be something that would make Zotero unique. Because if we are serious: There are a few research tools which are OS and also quite good. Yet a real client/server system is missing until now (as you stated quite correctly above).

Is it possible to cut out the server portion all-together for group work? Using local metadata files? or linking between users local libraries?

The reason i ask is that there are a load of other locally installable collaboration tools - wiki's for example - that could be used to augment/replace some of the zotero.org online functionality without affecting the zotero.org vision or other goals. It would seem to be something that could be solved with some extra documentation, and It could even serve to suggest new zotero.org features.

That is assuming some or all of the metadata syncing is redundant with local access to the user libraries, or could be done via the plugin with read access to the metadata portion local users zotero libraries?

I'm just going to repeat my earlier question (though also repeat: I don't speak for zotero):

For those research companies and institutes (as well as universities) that really consider this critical, can you imagine contributing to filling this gap?

By "contributing" I mean in concrete, tangible, ways (funding, programmer time, etc.).

Has the server code even been released yet?

We're planning to release the code once 2.0 is final. That said, if you're getting timeouts and sync errors now, running the code locally is not going to help, since network issues and server load are not likely the problem. If you can help us to debug those problems, all other Zotero users will benefit from your assistance.