[wp-hackers] GSoC 2013: WordPress migration plugin

[Manikandan Saravanan]

Hi hackers,

I'm Manikandan from Chennai, here's my proposal:
http://manikandansaravanan.com/gsoc2013/

I'm proposing a plugin that allows people to effortlessly migrate their
WordPress installation from one web host to another.

I'm summarizing my proposal here:
There are basically two cases when migrating one's WP installation - 1.
Retaining the same domain name 2. Moving to a new domain name.

1. Retaining the same domain name
I propose a straightforward way to do this. The user can export all his/her
data into a neat zip file which contains the following:
a. JSON files containing serialized data from the DB (one file per table).
b. Media such as images etc.
c. Folders containing themes and plugins.

The resulting zip file can be uploaded at the destination installation
(after installing the proposed plugin) and that's about it. There's no need
to worry about the serialized PHP containing the WP URLs since the domain
name is retained.

2. Moving to a new domain name
Apart from the challenge of modifying the serialized data to accommodate
the new domain name (and doing some magic with the length of the strings),
the actual migration can be done in two ways:

a. The export/import method described above.
b. The live transfer - this is where my core ideas come to work. We can
transfer data from the old WP installation to the new one in real time as
both installations may co-exist for some time as the new installation is
done in a totally new domain. The transfer of database entries can be done
by a series of RESTful API calls to the old installation that produce the
database entries as serialized JSON. The transfer of media and other files
and directories can be done as a series of recursive "wget" calls.

---------Questions--------

I have some specific questions for Mr.Nacin:
1. Does my idea make sense? Or are there things that I'm missing out or
taking for granted?
2. What is the deadline to submit my proposal?

-- 
Sincerely,
Manikandan
manikandansaravanan.com