I suppose this is a good opportunity to let you guys know that the project IS very much alive and kicking still, and we've just released a new set of invites today (which I suppose is why we got posted to HN today, thanks!)

We've been very busy with coding and work, which is why we haven't really been updating the blog, but if you have any questions I'll be happy to continue answering them here

edit: FYI, the original discussion is at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1538731

I checked out the project, saw "July 22" and automatically assumed it's yet another dead project. Glad to hear it's being worked on!

Can we set up our own "cloud" server? I assume that would be as simple as getting a server somewhere and running the software on it. Related: Do you have a CLI alongside the GUI?

You can definitely setup your own "cloud" server just by running the software, but we don't have a CLI just yet. This is fairly high on the to do list though, as there's been a lot of interest in that feature!

Would love to see that tided up because then this becomes a mechanism for distributing files to the cluster super easy for my "normal end users", plus the cloud benefits illumin8 is referring to.

Aerofs/Yuri have been very responsive and friendly on mail support, i like that a lot!

Thanks guys, and keep up the good work!

Yuri, what i am missing is some way to mark a directory to sync with the cloud. Usecase: I have some Windows directories in c:\users\xxx\ that i'd like to keep in sync. Obviously i can't link them to the aerofs-drive..

And now, to the 64bit linux version.. ;)

EDIT: To be clear, I didn't mean 'simple' as in easy to implement or trivial or any other negative sense. But more in a functional goal sense, like 'uncomplicated'.

So, for example, the total data stored and accessible in the system can exceed the local storage size of any individual participating node?

What's the performance like? (A sync service will be as fast, or slow, as local storage, but a distributed system can be a lot faster, or slower.)

How are you handling it when nodes which were previously added to the system are unavailable? For example, a user with a desktop and a laptop who stores a pile of data on the system, what happens when the desktop is off? Do you have control over what data is available on the laptop, and what happens when you try and access data which is currently unavailable?

Regarding offline computers: if the only computers that host a file are offline, the file data will be unavailable. Currently, offline files are invisible in Finder/Explorer/etc. Because the current system only supports full replication, having offline files should be a rare case.

Regarding performance: it's crucial to us. Lots of efforts has been made (and even more to be made) to ensure the filesystem has comparable performance to local storage; sync performance is another area that we invest a lot of time in.

* can't choose where local files are cached, it assumes where you want them

* no way to back up more than 1G to their "cloud", ie, no paid plans yet, which I would really like to have at least for my most unreplaceable files

* no way to share individual directories with other users, you must share entire "libraries" as they call them, which are basically top-level folders on your aerofs drive

* no way to make files publicly available for download

Other than those points, I think the service is a fantastic idea, and I do eagerly look forward to being able to switch from Dropbox for my photos, documents, etc. However, the above limitations mean that I can really only use it for a few extra things that I don't have room for on my Dropbox account, eg, music.

One thing that threw me off - the term 'Aero' (for me) implied Windows only... No real easy solution there as I don't expect (or even think you need) to change the name, but maybe adding something like 'cross-platforming file sync without servers'.

Awesome none-the-less though!

Since libTorrent was released, I figured someone would do something like this. No idea if Aero is using libTorrent, but the idea was a natural evolution.

This looks well executed, thanks. Can't wait to see the next steps.

Either way, hg/git/bzr don't work for a lot of cases, because they are extremely inefficient for synchronizing large files, such as music, photos, video, etc.

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/status.html

Theres nothing to rule out folks taking active ownership of dev work on the project, eg take the time to go to their svn repo http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison//svn-instructions... and eg run hg/git/darts import on the repo...

Also, if you look at the svn repo, its been touched with as recently as the past 8 weeks. thats pretty good for a project thats not active

Curious - can you sync between two such locations (nat/default deny/no udp)? i.e. will you bounce connections through your host or does one side have to open an inbound port?

http://www.aerofs.com:8080/signup

Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to www.aerofs.com:8080

http://www.wuala.com/en/learn/features

It's a shame that I never got an invite, can't wait to get my hands on this :)

they are certainly covered if they wanted to prevent it.

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

I think you found out :)