Is this module maintained?

I'm not sure what the current prioritization for this module is at the organization that originally funded much of its development (and that of related modules such as File Framework).

For my own part (speaking as the original developer of this module) I don't presently have any personal use cases for which I actually need this solution, so I've myself no immediate plans for its further development.

To be realistic, the complexity of this kind of a document management solution is such that, lacking funding, I doubt any of the existing maintainers are all that greatly motivated to volunteer their personal time hunting down bugs that others have encountered.

Thus I think that there would probably have to be additional sponsors and/or additional maintainers in place for development to continue actively.

That said, it truly would be a shame to let this die out, as I quite agree with you that this solution holds great promise if all the bugs can be ironed out.

I'll see if I can get Justin and Miglius (the other developers) to chime in regarding their own plans.

Is there any way promote this outstanding work in order to possibly attract generous sponsors and enthusiatic maintaniners ?

This (FileFramework and al.) is really the big missing piece in Drupal, and despite the waring, it work almost as well as much more popular modules.

We (the company sponsored the module) do not actively support the File Server module, however we planning to support a File Relations Server module as this is the one we are using on the company's websites.

File Relations Server does most what File Server does plus it is integrated with a Relations API.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Arto -- without sponsorship of the module, I don't have many personal use cases, and ditto about File Relations Server superseding this module :-/

Yes, Justin's (and Miglius's) exemplary work at File Relations Server is where it's at, currently.

@Justin, @Miglius, should we consider merging File Server and File Relations Server, in order to conserve our momentum? For example, given the de facto unmaintained status of the original File Server here, how about simply renaming File Relations Server into File Server, proper? (Or if that presents upgrade difficulties, making it a submodule in the File Server project, to begin with.)

You each already have full CVS access to the File Server project and hence also editing privileges to the project node, so if that should be something you guys want to do, feel free to go ahead - you can run the show as you want.

I didn't know about FileRelationServer.
Do you mean I should move from FileServer to this other module?
It does not seem to achieve the same functionalities, it also require complex modules I don't currently need (OG)

For example, I really appreciate the taxonomy browsing, which does not seem supported by FileRelationServer

Also, it is not clear how I could migrate to this new module, and I am not sure what it replaces exactly.
I am currently using :
bitcache
dav
fileframework
fileserver
rdf

Do I just have to disable File server and install the 3 modules FileRelationServer, OG, OG Vocabulary? Will my site will be affected by this change?

Thanks for help

subscribing.

I installed FileRelationServer and got a couple of new distant browsing capabilities in addition of the FileServer taxonomy browsing (by file type, node type basically)
I think it also handles taxonomy through OG vocabularies.

However, it is incompatible with FileServer, making the files looking as folders, so I had to forget about it.
http://drupal.org/node/451762

I hope the FileServer module will get again the attention it deserves.

Any update about the maintenance of File Server?

I understand now how it complements File RelationServer, and that it should be called "FileTaxonomy Server", which would certainly be more catchy.

It looks quite a small module and the limited issues that currently prevent its usage should not be difficult to fix. There are currently 2 that make it totally unusable:
- MIME headers lost / mixed up when uploading files from WebDAV client
http://drupal.org/node/537358
- Only 10 files visible from WebDav client
http://drupal.org/node/401300

It is really a great module and I hope it will be maintained again.

It seems that taxonomy browsing is provided by File Relations Server's dev version: see http://drupal.org/node/530736. So, if you already use File Framework, I think that's definitely the way to go.

But — if I may digress — it's a pity that you have to install so many modules to get a very useful basic functionality that could be made to work with Core Upload. I wish File Server could work like that: the user would designate a "file" content type and the module would create nodes of that type via WebDAV attaching the files through Core Upload. The only dependency for File Server would be the (Web)DAV module.

I consider File Framework the only full-fledged file management solution for Drupal — despite being at alpha stage it is remarkably good. With Bitcache + RDF + File Framework + DAV + OG + File Relations Server (dev) + some access control module, you can probably get rid of your separate DMS and do all document management in Drupal. But, if you don't need document indexing, metadata extraction, document conversion, antivirus checking, and some other goodies (keeping track of how many nodes your file node is attached to, etc…), you can get the basic functionality with Core Upload + CCK + Node Reference + Upload Paths + download_count + … The only missing piece being something like File Server for batch upload and automatic file node creation.

To make it short, I beg for maintenance, but in the direction of making File Server independent of File Framework (also, not to duplicate functionality already in File Relations Server).

I tried File Relation Server. I needs 2 additional modules (OG and OG vocaularies) to emulate the File server taxonmy browsing.
In addition, it looks even less mature than File server. I couldn't make it work
http://drupal.org/node/537588

I agree that FF/Bitcache/DAV/FileServer is unacceptably complex to only control files by Webdav and browse files by categories - what I was looking for indeed. I appreciated very much - though this was not what I was looking for - the "neutral bistream" repository by bitcache : I no longer worry about the proper organization of my files. They all fall anonymously in a single directory, names and "location" are separate issues that can be freely handled afterwards.

If only the 2 mentionned issues could be solved, we would have a working solution that could be improved later if it becomes popular enough...

The 10 files limit issue has gone!!!
http://drupal.org/node/401300

Now, the only issue is
http://drupal.org/node/537358

I gave up File Relation Server that is even more complex (2 more modules) and it doesn't work
http://drupal.org/node/537588