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It isn't FOSS but FirstClass is very well supported on Linux and my deployment of it has been dead reliable.

http://www.centrinity.com/

As a bonus they aren't anal on the subject which distro you run. My Archive Server and Groupware server run on Debian boxes. It has shared calendaring, conference groups, and all the rest of the groupware goodies. They have well supported clients for OS X and Windows, a web interface, and the thing will speak POP or LDAP if you so choose. It can pull users from an LDAP server or even BE the LDAP server (which I don't recommend).

The only downside is that the server requirements for their upcoming version are going to be nothing short of obscene.

But do they use it for anything besides physics? In the IT Department they use turnitin.com to combat plagiarism. Students submit both program code and papers there. (Along with usually submitting them to a first-class folder).

There is also FirstClass from Centrinity which runs on Linux servers and does mail, calendaring, collaboration etc. It's been available on other platforms for some time.

AND the server is FREE for a limited number of users..

like me. I'm starting up a small company with a handful of folks - and First Class is doing just fine for us. We have caledaring, email, voicemail, reads emails to you thru the phone, can reply to those over the phone with voice emails (.wav files sent as attachements), conferences for group postings, a SMTP service, webmail...

for business users, its got predefined groups of users (management, financial people, marketing pukes, etc.) Security between groups is easy to understand and easy to implement. Even a MSCE can do it!

the list goes on and on.

the school i went to - Biola.edu - they are now running with well over 8000 accounts - with around a few hundred connected at once - if you care, ask me next week when all the students come back, and there will be thousands on at once. We'll know then if the dual Xenon will melt, or survive.

Its been used there since 1993, and its been just great.

I'm looking forward to getting some of that capital i was promised so i can run it on a real server.

its cross platform (Windows, Mac os 9, Mac OS X) and, like i said, and the web interface lets you do anything that the executable client software lets you do - including calendaring and multi-user chat sessions.

its not perfect, so here's some drawbacks... its missing a few key features..
- no "sent mail" folder (and no, you Can't make one),
- filters/rules.. all your email goes into the inbox... spam and all. bletch.
- amazingly enough, there's no good alert sound to let you know when you've got a new message - no pop-up, no flashing Dock/startmenuthing blinking..
- you can't back up the databases while its running - soooo... you'll probably do what i do, and that's mirror the drives, and pray to God there's no database corruption, but that its just a drive fault.

other than that, its a great and cheap alternative to Exchange - especially since you can try it out today for free. The server runs on Windows and Mac OS 9 (and classic, btw: my server is on a 10.1 server, but its running in classic). There should be a Mac OS X First Class Server out sometime in the near future too. No word yet if it will run on Darwin, but don't be a cheap-ass.. just buy 10.2.

Centrinity is a bunch of levelheaded business people who started out as mac guys, but expanded to windows too. They are also canadians.. what more could you want?

Wow the screenshots of that look pretty sweet. I particularly like the voicemail stuff. That would be really handy.

Give me a product, open source or not, that provides my clients (on whose interests I act) with the functionality of Exchange, and I'll get the Purchase Order ready by close of business today.

How about Centrinty FirstClass? Cross platform unified messaging and groupware. I can access my email, voicemail, calendar, contacts from any computer anywhere in the world at a fraction of the cost of Exchange. Don't laugh, it works!

Centrinity creates an commercial alternative for mail/web/ftp/Unified Messaging. It runs on Windows as well as Mac servers with Linux server/client coming soon. So there are always other options.