I have a question to what, for me, is an absolute show-stopping issue.
Using all methods of access, CIFS/WebDAV/web interface, to access Alfresco is there a global way (as in set it once for an entire volume) to ensure that the creation date and the modified date of any file copied from a traditional file system to Alfresco is preserved and maintained? A natural progression of that question is can the same be said when copying a file from Alfresco to a traditional file system?
For any installation of Alfresco into an organization to replace windows file services there must be a ‘get comfortable’/acceptance/pilot phase, which means the solutions have to coexist. The smaller the size of the business the more true this is, since a small business is less likely to have the resources to forklift over to Alfresco. Users rely primarily on two methods to determine whether a given file is what they want, short of opening it: file name and the dates. Also, when users do their own manual backups or versioning, they use dates as a determinant. Certainly the software they may use will. While you may argue that Alfresco can do a better job than users or other software, this is a chicken and egg scenario, beginning with preservation of the vital basics: names, dates, & content. The dates (other than last accessed) of a file, unchanged by a user, have to be immutable across a network or organization.
After pouring through these forums I am more confused now than before. I keep reading entries containing arguments about metadata and items external to Alfresco. Then there is the supposed need to do things one file type at a time. File system dates are metadata. They are a universal attribute of all files. Before I care about the metadata inside my word or PDF document, I need to care about what the file system says. Also I’ve heard arguments that Alfresco doesn’t handle dates external to Alfresco. Well my network is my entire problem domain, not a single product. If Alfresco is to be part of the solution it needs to work in that entire space rather than take a NIH approach.
Can anyone help with this or clear up possible misconceptions for me.
patrick
