In a few weeks, the final release of ownCloud 7 will hit the web. In this and a few upcoming articles you can learn about some of the upcoming features. This article will focus on an improvement to one of the most core capabilities of ownCloud: sharing.
Sharing and private vs public clouds
Sharing photos, documents and other data has never been easier. With millions of users on Google, or Dropbox – and others — it is easy to share and collaborate with others within these public clouds. The downside is that we give up ownership and control of this data, not just to the cloud companies but their customers who buy this data (and their governments who subpoena it).
Private clouds give you back control over your data. You again know where it is and control who has access by creating user accounts or using sharing links. But they aren’t very convenient beyond our own clouds. To share documents with other students at university, they have to log into your cloud. And if you want to see the images your mother took of that awesome cake she’s teasing you with, you have to log into her cloud. The privacy comes at a cost – you are less connected.
Server to server sharing
ownCloud 7 introduces server to server sharing – allowing you to mount a share from another ownCloud instance and seamlessly collaborate on and share files from within your own ownCloud – essentially combining private clouds into a public cloud. You can even have the folder locally synced through the client. No need to create user accounts on your or the other instance – just, once, add the shared folder into your ownCloud.
This massively improves collaboration. To have your class mates connect to your ownCloud server, send them a shared folder link in the usual way. Instead of then having to visit your ownCloud each time, they can opt to click the ‘save to ownCloud’ button and add the folder to their own ownCloud instance. Then they can add this folder to the list of locally synced folders in their sync client and work with you and each other on the files in that folder as if it were on their own ownCloud server!
This is a great, first step to make sharing between servers more seamless and practical. We’re obviously looking forward to help with future steps – sharing users between instances, for example! If you’re interested in working on this, join ownCloud!
These are all the sneak peeks we released:
- ownCloud 7 for developers
- ownCloud 7 for system administrators
- online collaboration with Documents
- Performance and Ease of use
- More sharing!
- Improved sharing
Find more details on owncloud 7 in the feature list!
You can discuss the features of #owncloud7 on twitter, Google+ and Facebook and don’t forget to tell others about this ownCloud release!