So the Summer of Code is started and getting private and public files working is now on the top of the list of my priorities. The first issue to solve, should this go in Drupal 5 or Drupal 6. Because of the nature of the fixes Drupal 6 would make sense but may contain too many problems to work around (bugs, wildly changing code). What has really left it up in the air is this patch which would associate files with users rather than nodes. So the first step is to figure that out. If the patch is accepted and everything is looking good Drupal 6 will be getting more new and cool file features. If not then work will commence on Drupal 5 and will be ported to Drupal 6 in the future. Stay tuned for updates.
Update:
Well, Drupal 6 seems to be the consensus. Let the fun begin!
Comments
Good luck on Drupal 6
The File API patch has been committed. I'm curious how it influences the way that files are handled, but I haven't got the time to take a look at it currently. Hope that it eases your work!
it won't make a big difference
it shouldn't make a big difference. there's always going to be a table to join files to nodes. all this does is move that join explicitly to the upload table. other modules can add their own tables to link files to comments, or what ever they'd like. the big plus is that upload previews are now handled in the same way as regular files.
If you run into D6 woes,
If you run into D6 woes, don't be afraid to bail and go with D5. It would be nice to have it for D6, but finishing your project is always the first priority.
I would love to have this in D5
It would be great to have this functionality in D5.