[Unison-hackers] How do people feel about DropBox?

[Andrew Schulman]

> * You have to run their closed-source daemon on each of your hosts.
> * You store files on their servers and have to trust that they'll be safe
> there.
> 
> Well, actually, as compared to cloud services like Google Docs, etc, I don't
> think the second point is really a problem.

I guess it depends on what you're synchronizing.  I use Unison (over ssh)
to synchronize all of my personal and work files between two secure
locations.  I wouldn't trust any cloud service with those files.

>    Actually, I see the server side storage as an added bonus.  Pure
> client-client synchronization with unison requires that one personally be
> responsible for unisoning their content to geographically diverse locations
> for safe archival.  A big burden.

Agreed that cloud storage gives you extra security against disaster.  I see
also that DropBox includes 30 days of history in the free version, which is
nice extra protection against accidental deletion.

I can see that that's an appealing and easy-to-use combination for a lot of
people.  For me, it doesn't provide any benefit because nightly backups and
version control of critical files already protect me against accidental
deletions.  As for geographical diversity, I synchronize my files between
home and work, which I'll bet is the most common way people use Unison.
Those locations are 11 miles apart, so if an asteroid or earthquake hits I
may lose my files, but short of that I'll still have them.

Andrew.