I've been playing and deploying instances of https://www.owncloud.org http://www.bittorrent.com/sync > Eggert, Lars <mailto:lars@xxxxxxxxxx> > 7 November 2013 13:01 > Hi, > > since a "secure DropBox alternative" was brought up: the pieces for > building such do exist, but some exist outside the IETF. For example, > SNIA's CDMI (http://www.snia.org/cdmi) could be useful, and on the > IETF side we have of course WebDAV. > > In many cases, the reason that such alternatives don't exist probably > isn't because there aren't any open protocols available to build them > with, it's that the proprietary services have polished clients that > are simple to set up, available for many clients, and that they have a > robust and well-managed backend. There's not much the IETF can do > about these factors. > > In the specific case of DropBox clones, several vendors of storage > systems (incl. my employer) are making or will shortly be making > mobile clients available that use said storage systems as a backend > instead of the public cloud. So at least for that particular > application, there are alternatives available. > > Lars >