GmailFS

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ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:26 pm

wow, check this out: somebody succeeded to mount his gmail account on linux. result: 1 gb of remote space. Respect!

http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/ ... ystem.html

(hm, was on slashdot too) I just HAVE to try this lateron.

Cossins · Post by **Cossins** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:42 pm

Yeah, while it can't be too efficient (being written in Python in user-space), it is indeed a cool kind of proof-of-concept. I doubt it is suitable for production use, but maybe it could be one day (unless Google cuts it off, which would make sense server-load wise).

- Simon

Post by **Pythonhead** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:57 pm

I bet Google will start shutting down accounts quickly since using gmail as storage is against their policy.

Heres an ebuild I wrote for libgmail if you want to check your gmail for new mail, download it etc:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62100

Check out the demos directory for scripts for pop3, smtp etc

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:00 pm

yeah, they'll probably cut it off. I highly doubt they have enough free space to actually host 1gb of space for every user: they probably calculated some mean of space used by every user. This mean will be a lot higher when the space is this accessible, I guess.

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:07 pm

from gmail terms of use:

Accordingly, you agree that you will not copy, reproduce, alter, modify, or create derivative works from the Service. You also agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automated device, or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Service

there you go

on the other hand, it states that you may use no manual process to monitor content from the service. Gee, reading your mail was never this tricky

viperlin · Post by **viperlin** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:20 pm

lol i'm still waiting for a decent working way of auto checking my gmail, gkrellm plugin would be nice

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:33 pm

offtopic@viperlin: maybe a gdesklet? I saw plenty at the website. And well, only one desklet won't kill your cpu

Post by **Pythonhead** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:10 pm

viperlin wrote:lol i'm still waiting for a decent working way of auto checking my gmail, gkrellm plugin would be nice

Install the ebuild I posted above and run the gmailpop3d.py script in the demo directory.

Some of the demos require dev-python/logging

EDIT: The gmailpop3d.py demo should also have "import logging" added to it.

viperlin · Post by **viperlin** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:25 pm

actually i've tried all the desklets, they either dont work or only ever check the account once, then crash....

the gnome applet doesnt appear in the status notification menu

but anyway gmailfs is against the rules, but they must have seen it coming

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:31 pm

yikes. Anyway I cannot confirm that as I am still waiting for somebody to invite me to gmail. Heard on the forum that it is worth it. Makes me curious.

edit: thanks for every person who offered an account. I now have one, thank you. Not that it is so spectacular, but I am satisfied

nilbus · Post by **nilbus** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:16 pm

The transfer rate for files is the same as your upload speed, but the
time per transaction is pretty high. My modem's upload is capped at
40k/s.
It takes me 8.5 seconds to create an empty file with touch, and 2
seconds to delete it. I got an effective rate of 22k/s uploading a 1
meg file, and 34k/s uploading a 35 meg file. It took 35 seconds to
delete the 35 meg file.

Not very fast, but pretty cool anyway.

Squinky86 · Post by **Squinky86** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:06 pm

Please respect the policies you agreed to when signing up for gmail (more notes in bug #62100).

S. Traaken · Post by **S. Traaken** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:35 am

Squinky86 wrote:Please respect the policies you agreed to when signing up for gmail

And while doing that, please ensure you don't play any DVDs on non-licensed hardware.

Zepp · Post by **Zepp** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:45 am

neat but if it becomes a problem i am sure google will simply stop it from working

Squinky86 · Post by **Squinky86** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 4:33 pm

S. Traaken wrote:And while doing that, please ensure you don't play any DVDs on non-licensed hardware.

I understand your point, but until we get word that Google will allow libgmail or gmailfs, I vote against it being included in portage. We not only want to maintain a professioinal image by respecting the Google company, but we also don't want to have users complain to us about cancelled accounts.

This is a stretch of this issue, but let's say for instance you could emerge Microsoft Office XP. If you were to do this and the Microsoft Corporation found out about it, then charged you a license fee to use the software you have installed and are using, Gentoo would not want to be held reliable for making that software available to you.

We are in no way responsible for what you chose to do with your computer, but please keep in mind that Gentoo does not support the breaking of licensed agreements.

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:07 pm

While I 99% agree with you squinky, can't help but think about all that p2p software that is in portage, which IS being used in more obscure ways than GMailFS is (yet). This is unprofessional in a way too. The license of those networks also state that users shouldn't trade illegal stuff, it still is done, is that a reason to ban the software?

Arr, this thread is heading off the wall

Squinky86 · Post by **Squinky86** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:18 pm

ahbuist wrote:The license of those networks also state that users shouldn't trade illegal stuff, it still is done, is that a reason to ban the software?

Arr, this thread is heading off the wall

Please provide a legal use for gmailfs. For p2p, I could really use some help from a competent programmer to help me implement my ideas on a p2p distfiles mirror. For gmailfs, what use does it have but to use the gmail service for an unintended purpose?

And no, this is not heading off-the-wall quite yet, there are some good points in here about professional courtesy and legal etiquite

. Wow, a gentoo forums post talking about etiquite...you're right, this is off-the-wall!

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 10:57 pm

hmm, browse your attachments as a filesystem? That could be useful in a way.
You could mail your important docs to yourself each day in an attachment, as a cronjob. Then, with GmailFS, you could erase the old mail. Nifty eh?

The legal thing would just be a sort of tolerated existence of the system. Like softdrugs in the Netherlands

Or, maybe the system could provide a way to POP3 your gmail account. This is just a guess, but I couldn't see any harm in that actually. That would seem to me something equal to the yahoo and hotmail webmail fetch things. I am just guessing now as I am not sure whether this can be done with this implementation.

viperlin · Post by **viperlin** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 11:01 pm

ahbuist wrote:hmm, browse your attachments as a filesystem? That could be useful in a way.
You could mail your important docs to yourself each day in an attachment, as a cronjob. Then, with GmailFS, you could erase the old mail. Nifty eh?

The legal thing would just be a sort of tolerated existence of the system. Like softdrugs in the Netherlands

Or, maybe the system could provide a way to POP3 your gmail account. This is just a guess, but I couldn't see any harm in that actually. That would seem to me something equal to the yahoo and hotmail webmail fetch things. I am just guessing now as I am not sure whether this can be done with this implementation.

i think imap would be a much better way that pop3, and browsing attachments would be quite good as a directory i guess, hard to tell who sent it though..

Squinky86 · Post by **Squinky86** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:55 am

ahbuist wrote:hmm, browse your attachments as a filesystem? That could be useful in a way.
You could mail your important docs to yourself each day in an attachment, as a cronjob. Then, with GmailFS, you could erase the old mail. Nifty eh?
The legal thing would just be a sort of tolerated existence of the system. Like softdrugs in the Netherlands

And as I said before, using libgmail/gmailfs to do this would be breaking privacy policy, as libgmail must reformat the layout of this google service:
<from gmail policy>
* [You will not] Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service

There is no legal way of using libgmail/gmailfs unless google comes out and tells you that they don't mind.

ahubu · Post by **ahubu** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:00 pm

yep, I know: that license is tight. That actaully means that gmail has to come up with some sort of imap/pop3 service, or it will be useless. At least for me. I already have 120gb of mailspace (my hdd). I actually never could understand why people don't use imap or pop3. Webmail is so passe.

Arker · Post by **Arker** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 1:07 pm

This abuse is why free services like Hotmail et al suck in the first place.

~djc

silentbob · Post by **silentbob** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 2:25 pm

As a proof of concept I think the gmailFS is fantastic. I don't really think it has any real practical value; I might give it a go for the geek / curiosity factor though!! I only signed up for the gmail account because it was available, I don't even use it for my primary email.

Carlo · Post by **Carlo** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:18 pm

Squinky86 wrote:there are some good points in here about professional courtesy and legal etiquite .

May be you should tell Google about it. Their legal terms are void in any EU court.

Zepp · Post by **Zepp** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 1:10 am

ahbuist wrote:yep, I know: that license is tight. That actaully means that gmail has to come up with some sort of imap/pop3 service, or it will be useless. At least for me. I already have 120gb of mailspace (my hdd). I actually never could understand why people don't use imap or pop3. Webmail is so passe.

I'd consider running a mail server, but don't know where to get a short redirection for one don't want some huge @something.something.net or whatever

and what happens if my computer isnt running when someone sends me a message?

GmailFS

GmailFS

speeds