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This idea is to have the option of buying Cloud accounts with KDE, using open standards and technologies to have an entirely remote experience. This is how one might set it up:

Start by paying £20-£30 a month (for example). You set it up with a standard E-mail address and password format (E.g. madman@kde.org or madman@community.kde.org, or whatever sub-domain you want), as well as whatever's necessary for security reasons. With this E-mail address, you get:

Have a comprehensive check-box list of services to add to your subscription, with each costing a certain amount that's then combined into one monthly price, with a basic E-mail address(/other services?) coming free. With this E-mail address, you could apply for any of the following:

• An OpenID to log on to any KDE website (works best if all KDE websites use OpenID, obviously);
  
• An E-mail address inbox using IMAP and SMTP;
  
• A microblogging account using Status.net (allowing you to follow people on kde.org, identi.ca etc.);
  
• An instant-messaging account using Jabber/XMPP;
  
• A slice of online storage for all your files (using ownCloud);
  
• Automatic back-up of your KDE application settings, including Contacts, Calendar, Plasma set-up etc. (probably also using ownCloud, accessible through Akonadi);
  
• A Magnatune subscription to fund artists using the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license (stream or download);
  
• More cool stuff here.
  

Then, at any KDE machine, instead of simply using, "madman" as the username as you would to log in locally, type, "madman@kde.org" or, "madman@community.kde.org" or whatever it is you've used, then your online password. Bang! You log in and all your programs are already configured for you: KMail has your @kde.org E-mail address set-up already, as do Kopete and the Akonadi microblogging resource (which is what should be used by the widget and Choqok), your plasma configuration loads up, your Contacts and Calendar events are all in place, Amarok is set up to listen to Magnatune music and all your files are ready for you to work with straight away (Psst - would be even better if it was all accessed remotely, without downloading anything. Think about my 8GB netbook hard-drive!).

I think, with KDE's focus on cloud technology and the Internet in general, this would be a fantastic way for us to provide a unique selling point for our software while providing KDE EV with an extra source of income and to provide a fully free-and-open-source cloud environment.

Cool idea!
But I'd prefer if we could have an easy and integrated package to set up such services on our own servers, or if third parties could easily provide such service, in an interoperable way (so one doesn't depend on the provider, and can easily change it if he/she wants).

It could be cool indeed if these services were provided by kde.org, for a small, annual fee. It could attract more people to KDE.

I'm thinking of a situation similar to the one of status.net (that provides the software) and identi.ca (that provides the service).

There was already an idea about KDE email addresses that was rejected as infeasible, I don't think email addresses and a ton of other stuff would be accepted. But I will wait for a second opinion.

@kde.org addresses will not be available for everybody as stated before, but if this was to be made (which would be cool IMO) the domain could always be something like kdeworld.org, kdeuser.org or users.kde.org etc.

The first problem I see implementation-wise is that system admin (on the client machine) would need to enable some kind of remote login which would mount the remote disk as /home/$USER.

This would slow down every application since all /disk/ activity would be turned into /network activity/.

Another problem would be setting up the infrastructure which would take a lot of time without knowing for sure that it would be used. If there was some kind of pledgebank, then it might work.

What a fantastic idea! Now that KDE 4 is here to stay and akonadi et al have been through most their teething troubles this could work beautifully by means of a click.

Of course it would also make it absolutely stand out in terms of DEs.

Had it been implemented yesterday, I would already have an account

PS: Also a nice income stream...

gerlos wrote:Cool idea!
But I'd prefer if we could have an easy and integrated package to set up such services on our own servers, or if third parties could easily provide such service, in an interoperable way (so one doesn't depend on the provider, and can easily change it if he/she wants).

It could be cool indeed if these services were provided by kde.org, for a small, annual fee. It could attract more people to KDE.

I'm thinking of a situation similar to the one of status.net (that provides the software) and identi.ca (that provides the service).

I don't think these two ideas have to be mutually exclusive - KDE could set it up as its own services and provide a release tarball/SVN/GIT branch/whatever, to allow e.g. companies to create a similar environment for internal use.

ivan wrote:@kde.org addresses will not be available for everybody as stated before, but if this was to be made (which would be cool IMO) the domain could always be something like kdeworld.org, kdeuser.org or users.kde.org etc.

The first problem I see implementation-wise is that system admin (on the client machine) would need to enable some kind of remote login which would mount the remote disk as /home/$USER.

This would slow down every application since all /disk/ activity would be turned into /network activity/.

Another problem would be setting up the infrastructure which would take a lot of time without knowing for sure that it would be used. If there was some kind of pledgebank, then it might work.

Well, as long as the GUIs of the applications don't lag, then a reduction in speed of e.g. loading/saving files will obviously be expected, but if given the choice, I think at least some people will be willing to use this given the benefits.

At the moment, we have two choices:
We can run our computers entirely locally (all data and settings saved on our computers), and lose EVERYTHING when we use/buy another computer;
We can run our computers with a local log-in while using remote storage for various things (ownCloud/Google services/what-have-you), and lose all our settings but not our data when we use/buy another computer.

This idea is to give us a third, logical choice, which has clear trade-offs that I think many would be willing to accept:
Run our computers entirely remotely, and lose NOTHING when we use/buy another computer.

This third option would also give netbooks a completely new use-case: teeny, tiny, SSD hard-drives that store the system and applications and yarns of space in the cloud. If I had 50GB+ of hard-drive space accessible from my 8GB netbook hard-drive, I'd think I was in heaven.

If we really wanted to, we could also have a web front-end for use on Gnome/Windows/MacOS/whatever, but the main focus of this idea is to have a real, free-and-open-source desktop<-->cloud implementation.

Perhaps an alternative to the mount remote drive option would be to store (cache) the data locally, but part of the service is that settings and data would be synced regularly. Thus giving us the speed of local access with the reliability of remote access.

Edited the original post to suggest a different method of approaching the price/features. Check it out. Or not. Nobody's forcing you. I'd really like if you did, though. Please?

The checkboxes has me worried... I would say that a lot of it should come as the basic package, and that the checkboxes should simply be hidden in an "Additional Options" menu, which would include, say, the option to upgrade your online storage from 2GB to 50 (ala Ubuntu one), or have your computer automatically back up. If you add too many options, people get confused and generally see it as a way to get someone to accidentally sign up for more services than they really need, while we still offer "prices as low as $3.00/month!" It just doesn't leave a good taste in your mouth when you realize half of the useful tools are extra fees: just think of your cell phone bill.

What I would not like to see is a company paying for this and having a special advantage over KDE e.V. This should be started completely on donations and profits go directly to KDE e.V. This would be a great idea if it is done this way. Ubuntu One's profit goes to cannocial (who cares what the name is) and therefore is not good. As Madman wrote I would like five options (Obviously space is not in here there could be 2GB - 1TB, also all hosted by KDE e.V. or maybe by a company that KDE e.V. pays to host {Although it is done through KDE}. Dirstro should be chosen by the user):

Option 1: Remote login through email address such as stephenmac7@kdeusers.org /home/$HOME would be mounted through a networking filesystem such as NFS

Option 2: A folder such as ~/cloud which would also be mounted through NFS. Another way would be to do it Dropbox syle (Closed Source so I have no idea how they do it)

Option 3: Full KDE desktop through a protocol such as XDMCP (Yet more secure) through an option in KDM

Option 4: Option 3 + Access through internet (Like Suse Studio) Also make it work on Konqueror please.

Option 5: Just a basic web host (VPS) with extra KDE capabilities and KDE itself.

Thanks for reading yet, I would like to point out that this should NOT be installed by default.

Edit: Also please tell me if it will be KDE e.V. only... this could give you extra votes for this.