An excellent rant, but most of it is totally wrong.
OpenOffice/LibreOffice write ACTUAL files for locking. These begin with a . (dot) and are normally hidden. (These lock files are also protected with a file lock).
Dropbox does not sync these (because it can't read them, because of the file lock). This is the ONLY limitation that prevents locking from working. Its a major complaint in the Dropbox forums. We are vociferous in those threads. Dropbox are selling products which
You are basically expecting something you have no right to expect. If you need a real network filesystem then use a real network filesystem. they say are designed for team collaboration, but which do not include file locking for office docs.
Other packages that create lock files without a leading dot, and without a file-lock work just fine.
If I open a libre office document called lynn, this file is produced: .~lock.lynn.odt# It is not synced. If I copy and rename it, it _is_ synced. Dot or no dot. It seems to be that Dropbox are looking out just for office lock files. All other types of file we have tried are synced.
Further, lock checking via visible lock files is NOT hard. It works very well in most instances.
There exists a possibility of simultaneous opening by different users, but this is rare by virtue of the way dropbox is used by most people, and easily handled by applications which can detect a lock failure, and by dropbox itself when file collisions occur.
Locks via actual files, and the handling of asynchronous lock file creation is something that has been handled in slow networks for a long time.
Exactly what I have tried to argue. Unfortunately, it is not possible to communicate with anyone at Dropbox who would understand this. Thanks for your reply. L x -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org