Re:Dropbox saved almost $75M over two years by moving out of...
by sedachv on Sunday February 25, 2018 @02:01PM
(#16460509)
Not only did BrandonM have a point in 2007, today it is even easier and much more advantageous to do file synchronization with Free Software tools. If you have multiple machines you have SSH on all of them already. There is no better solution out there than git together with ediff for versioning and conflict resolution. rsync and unison are great for syncing media files across many devices/USB drives/microSD cards with different filesystems on them. Hardlink or ZFS snapshots just work.
Dropbox is not even an option for me because there is no official support or reliable way to run it on OpenBSD.
Dropbox is a consumer product with limited features and use cases. Smugly dismissing the needs and technical capabilities of power users is not going to endear you to anyone here.
Re:Dropbox saved almost $75M over two years by moving out of...
by tachyoff on Sunday February 25, 2018 @02:11PM
(#16460571)
Then it’s good that my goal is not to endear myself to anyone here. Flippantly dismissing certain technologies and engaging in “just”isms needs to be called out because it’s not productive or helpful. Moreover, I think it’s funny that the same kinds of posts are being made in 2018 as were made in 2007 (i.e. “why don’t you just...”), considering they have nothing to do with Dropbox saving money by migrating away from AWS. Really, it’s not germane at all. Perhaps if the source were an article about open source alternatives to Dropbox.
Re:Dropbox saved almost $75M over two years by moving out of...
by sedachv on Sunday February 25, 2018 @02:48PM
(#16460780)
> Flippantly dismissing certain technologies and engaging in “just”isms needs to be called out because it’s not productive or helpful.
I agree that hashkb's comment was flippant and unhelpful, but your reply was not any better and was the one that went off-topic.
Re:Dropbox saved almost $75M over two years by moving out of...
by zacharycohn on Sunday February 25, 2018 @03:00PM
(#16460847)
That's all true, but you are not their customer here. Their customer is the person who has never heard half the words you just said - or at least the person who has to support a bunch of people who've never heard half the words you just said. :)
Re:Dropbox saved almost $75M over two years by moving out of...
by betaby on Sunday February 25, 2018 @02:07PM
(#16460551)
And he was totally right. Now it's even easier and mature open source tool and libraries are available. https://syncthing.net/ is good example
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.