Todays electronic devices communicate with each other more and more cell-phones, tv, gaming console or computers can display pictures, play music or a movie.

The DLNA consortium (http://dlna.org) defines protocols to facilitate the communication between these very different devices. DLNA is a sub-set of the UPnP protocols.

Coherence is designed to act as a gateway between services and software applications in the new interconnected digital age.

Sharing content (images, videos, music) between a personal computer and a gaming console is already possible with existing applications. Coherence extends the simple file-based sharing approach by acting as a bridge between online content or media provided by other applications and the existing UPnP world. For example, Flickr images can be looked at on a television that implements the DLNA protocol.

Sharing content between various electronic devices becomes an afterthought rather then a full weekend project.

Coherence is already packaged in several Linux distributions, and is now also available as a separate source tarball.

Developed in Python, Coherence can work as a system service (aka started via the initscripts) or as an user level application. An applet is provided allowing every user to start/stop Coherence from the desktop tool bar.

Coherence offers a DBus interface enabling all non-UPnP software a gateway to this "share-with-everyone" world.

Since version 0.6.0, coherence can transcode audio content using the GStreamer toolkit, improving the compatibility matrix between equipments. It's now possible to play an OGG audio file on a system that only knows about MP3.

This version also includes a Nautilus plugin to share files directly from the Gnome File manager. Arstechnica talks about it here :  http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/[..]

Web Site : http://coherence.beebits.net/

Country : France

License : MIT

Leader of the Project : Frank Scholz

Aimed Public : Owners of a UPnP/DLNA compatible device, so everyone that need to share content between cell-phone, TVs, gaming console and personal computers.

Similar Project : ushare

Specificity : Coherence has a bright new vision for content sharing. It is not designed to be just as a simple "file sharing" server but as a media gateway. Coherence can be best described as some kind of middleware... a media hub.

Coherence implements an API that can be used by plugins or applications.
On one hand, it is possible to open some online content to the UPnP world (jamendo, flickr, apple trailers, ampache (http://ampache.org) ...)

On another hand, UPnP-agnostic applications will find a software gateway to this open world without the needs of developing a complete & complex UPnP stack

Links with other projects : Ampache, Nautilus, Totem, Rythmbox, Eye-Of-Gnome,

Want to contribute ?

The project needs contributors to improve plugins and create new ones.
Currently planned plugins would strive to offer online content like youtube, dailymotion etc... As with most free software, improving documentation is an important and ongoing task. Although you may not be a coder, people with a little bit of free time can contribute documentation. Help of all kinds is always welcome.

We would also like to improve the webpage in order to provide end-users a more friendly landing point. As part of this task Coherence is in need of a distinct Logo / Slogan. If you have any ideas or would like to contribute, as with all free software, Help is always welcome.

Number of developer : 1

Number of contributors : 5

Mailing-list of the project : http://lists.beebits.net/piper[..]

Public CVS/SVN : http://coherence.beebits.net/b[..]