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I can't believe all the Microsoft shills that are on Slashdot these days! All sorts of 'softies whining about how OOo is missing this or that feature when the rest of us know that the 90/10 rule applies -- 90 percent of the users only use 10 percent of the functionality. And it's clear that OOo has far more than 10 percent of the functionality of MS Office.

I for one am quite happy to see that an Outlook killer is going to find its way into OOo. Truth is, you could already put a solution together yourself using existing components. Start with the base thunderbird package, add Lightning for the calendar, and then add the plugins for attaching to server-side calendars and address books (using vCard and iCalendar data formats, and one of various DAV or IMAP based protocols for connectivity). The server would be something like Citadel which provides many of the same features as Exchange + SharePoint, plus web access for the folks who are away from their primary computers.

The problem is that it can be difficult to integrate and maintain it all, particularly on a fleet of computers. That's why I'd be very happy to see the OOo folks put it all together for us. Just install OOo, point it at your Citadel or Kolab or OGo server, and get right to work. Even more importantly, it'll be a ready-made solution that'll work on all supported operating systems.

Like it or not, Thunderbird does need to compete with Outlook. I'd be very happy if they'd maintain two builds: a "lite" version that only does mail, and a "groupware" version that integrates well with open source "Exchange killer" software. (I'm partial to Citadel because I'm involved in its development, but any server supporting standard iCalendar and vCard formats delivered over standard protocols will be just fine.)

(And yes, I used the "g" word. Proudly, in fact. Don't bother linking to JWZ's rant about it because he's wrong.).

Perhaps they could even have several versions, such as a Thunderbird "Lite" that only does email, and a full version that does groupware (calendars, address books, etc.) If they're smart, they'll make an effort to interoperate with existing open source groupware servers such as Citadel or Kolab instead of wasting resources building their own. There really is a market for this stuff out there.

They don't even have a stable release yet!!!

That is not a positive thing.

Anyone who seriously looked at Zimbra already knows that it has a couple of limitations, one of which is that the "open source" version is quite stripped down. If you want the fully functional version you have to pay for it. It is also extremely resource hungry, carrying with it an entire Java application server, an entire copy of MySQL, etc. etc. etc.

That having been said, Zimbra does have a gorgeous UI and it'll be interesting to see what Yahoo does with it.

So what's left for those of us who want to run feature-rich groupware servers on our own hardware? Check out Citadel -- http://www.citadel.org. It is a mature, stable, and feature-rich platform with email, calendars, address books, bulletin boards, instant messaging, GroupDAV for rich clients, and a very nice AJAX web UI. Full support for Outlook will arrive later this year, too. The best part is that unlike Zimbra (or Scalix, for that matter), the whole system is released under the GPLv3. Just like the Ubuntu folks said a few years ago, "There is no 'enterprise' version. We make our very best work available to everyone under the same terms."

Through a decade of technological "progress" the Internet self-important-erati have slowly been inventing the equivalent of the venerable BBS. What's worse, those who arrived to the party late actually think they've created something new that hasn't been done before.

It's both amusing and frustrating to see the BBS spoken of as a technology of yesteryear, while mainstream Internet culture gets closer and closer to being an exact duplicate of BBS culture. Strip away all of the fancy buzzwords and you've basically got the same thing: people connecting to each other online.

As a BBS sysop of nearly 20 years (please visit us online!) I can say with certainty that nothing has changed. Everything old is new again. And may I say to the "Web 2.0" and "social network" people: you didn't invent it.

This could be a great opportunity for the Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbird could be the basic, streamlined email client for people who "just want mail," while Eudora's default build could include all of the PIM functions like server-side address books and calendars, etc. And they can make it talk to open source email/collaboration servers (read: Exchange killers) like Citadel for a true end-to-end solution.

Exchange is on its way out ... or at least the idea that Exchange can lock an organization into Windows is on its way out. Slowly but surely, open source is building Exchange alternatives. Citadel is one such alternative, and it's rapidly gaining in popularity.

If you're looking for an open source calendar server that works nicely with Sunbird, may I humbly recommend Citadel. It syncs up nicely with Sunbird via the webcal (DAV) standard, and also hosts a wonderful array of groupware features such as email, address books, instant messaging, forums, etc. And everything is available via a slick AJAX-style web interface (including that same calendar you're maintaining in Sunbird). Give it a try.

For those who want to try it without having to, you know, do anything, you can download the appliance. I'm doing this now, and if I'm still at work when it completes, I'll maybe write something about it. We're currently looking at bringing mail in-house (outsourced now, to some incompetents) and they want Outlook (yuck.)

One of the open source Exchange killers is Citadel, which there definitely are .deb's and repositories for. The reason you won't find Zimbra, Scalix, etc. there is because those products are not "true" open source; they're basically just stripped down versions of commercial products. The only reason Zimbra and Scalix are quasi open source in the first place is because they needed access to open source components like Postfix, MySQL, etc. Citadel is true community-developed open source.

Most of the open source groupware systems seem to have a non-free "pro" or "enterprise" version. If you're looking for something that's completely open source, you might want to try out Citadel [http://www.citadel.org]. It is community-developed and doesn't have the multi-tiered approach. Fully turnkey, nothing to integrate manually, and it has a nice ajax-based front end too. An Outlook connector is currently in beta, too.

Take a look at http://www.citadel.org/
It as group calendaring etc
I believe that there is an outlook plugin on the way
works with Kontact. Easy enough to get running.

I got the server up and working in under 2 hours.
Sent the next couple of days tweaking it and generally messing about :)

Supports
IMAP(s)
POP3(s)
SMTP(s)
groupdav
http(s) front end
Also has a built in listserv

I've found it to be very cool

Before some random dork starts spouting about how Thunderbird sux0rs because open source doesn't have an end-to-end Outlook/Exchange replacement...

Thunderbird+Lightning connected to a Citadel server does the job quite nicely. Mail, calendar, contacts, all server-side and end-to-end, 100 percent open source.

Thanks for asking. :)

Most corporations use the groupware in Exchange/Outlook, Thunderbird can't really compete there as it does not have a proper exchange equivalent to talk to.

There ARE NO free groupware solutions, there never have been, and I'm starting to think there never will be. The support costs are simply to brutal and impassible an issue for the open source community to deal with.

I have seen Citadel mentioned in the past: http://www.citadel.org/doku.php

I don't know much about it - can anyone comment on whether this could work in place of Exchange?

...when you can have both?

The only features missing for those categories are email / calendaring / scheduling (similar to Outlook/Exchange, GroupWise or Lotus Notes)

There's little doubt that there's significant interest in getting out from under Microsoft's thumb. Most people seem to know it, too. Why do people insist on running Windows even though they know Microsoft is hurting them? It is the classic profile of an abusive relationship. The abused party has trouble ending the relationship, even though he/she knows it's the right thing to do.

He's right about those "largest enterprise customers." The example I've been following is Exchange. If you've installed Exchange 5.5 back in the 1990's, you'd remember a relatively easy installation. Set up Windows NT, pop in the Exchange CD, and you basically had a working system. (It'd be an open relay, but that's another story.)

Fast forward to 2007. In order to install the current version of Exchange you pretty much have to become a directory services expert. You need to know Active Directory pretty well, and basically be at the MCP level of Microsoft-brainwash. Sure, this is great if you're running something like Ford Motor Company and you have 100,000 users at dozens of locations, but what if you're a small to medium business and you just want to set up a basic mail and calendar server?

Disclaimer: the reason I know about this is because I'm involved in the development of Citadel, an open source groupware server. One of the things we focused on was making the installation as easy as Exchange 5.5 used to be. That's my "full disclosure". :)

For a very good Exchange replacement, try Citadel -- http://www.citadel.org/ Your mileage may vary, but the February issue of Linux Journal has declared, "Microsoft Exchange, Meet Your Replacement."

For a very good Exchange replacement, try Citadel -- http://www.citadel.org/ Your mileage may vary, but the February issue of Linux Journal has declared, "Microsoft Exchange, Meet Your Replacement."

Much of what Novell was promising for Hula was ideas that have been either implemented or planned in the Citadel project [http://www.citadel.org] anyway. (We pitched Citadel to them about six months before the Hula announcement ... and they said they weren't interested, and then they announced their project. Draw your own conclusions.)

Anyway, do try Citadel -- it is a very well-integrated collaboration server with an ajax-style web user interface, built-in data stores, lightweight implementations of all relevant protocols (POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc.) ... very easy to install, and just a joy to use.

Citadel might be overkill for what your are wanting. http://www.citadel.org/

True. A couple of years ago there was a dearth of open source PIM software out there. Now there's quite a bit. For the AJAX-minded, there's server software like Citadel. For those who want a fat client, there really isn't anything better than Kontact, which really has come into its own with end-to-end PIM and groupware functions. Put the two together and you've really got an end-to-end solution.

I'd like to mod this +1 informative but need to add something. IRC with gaim gives you more control than the other options plus clients that work on all platforms. Used with a vpn (OpenVPN) its very secure.

There is also citadel if your business isn't a starchy corporate invironment. http://www.citadel.org/

• Built-in SMTP, POP, and IMAP services
• Database-driven, single-instance message store
• Authenticated SMTP
• Multiple domain support
• Global address book -- users in a single domain can be spread out over multiple Citadel servers
• Group calendaring and scheduling
• Web-based access to email
• Very strong support for "public folders"
• Built-in instant messaging

Think outside the box. Calendars, email, etc. are useful tools, but it'd be a mistake to try to do everything exactly the way Microsoft does. For an alternative approach, you might want to try Citadel instead. Open source, AJAX-enabled, and talks to lots of client packages out there. And it doesn't try to be a clone of Microsoft's offering -- instead, it starts with the approach of helping your user community to work/play/quack *as* a user community instead of as a bunch of disparate users who happen to be occasionally sending data back and forth. Give it a try.

Email is popular because it gets the job done. People like to have a "flow of conversation" just like they do when talking to each other in person.

This ought to be a lesson to people building collaboration software. Microsoft has a lot of people convinced that calendars and address books are the killer apps for collaboration, but in reality, people are looking to be connected to other people. I may be a little bit biased on this one, though, because I'm involved in a project that has built a collaboration software with its roots in the BBS world. Our user community loves it because it lets people work/play/quack together without calling attention to itself.

Even though us geeks tend to see little value in having a calendar bolted to an email program, there are lots of people out there who just can't seem to live without it. So this is a good first step.

But don't go looking for the one big server app that's going to be the "Exchange Killer" that goes with it. That's not how the open source world is answering that challenge. Exchange will not be a Goliath felled by David, it will be more like a Gulliver restrained by multiple Lilliputians. This is because programs like Lightning aren't being written to work with a single server -- they're using Webcal (iCalendar publish/subscribe over HTTP, made popular by Apple of course) and can talk to groupware servers like Citadel and OpenGroupware today. Further on down the line, connectors will become available for the emerging standard GroupDAV protocol. For more complex server-side logic, eventually CalDAV will come out of draft as well.

It's going to be a great world. Finally, after all these years of delay, group calendaring and scheduling will be as open, interoperable, and non-dominated-by-one-player as email is today.

The more the various open apps work together with the same open protocols, the more easily the Lilliputians will surround the hapless Gulliver, and take him (Microsoft) down to their level.

keeping them too busy to crush the smaller players entering the groupware market

The rant you are referring to sounds great at the surface, but it only goes to prove that JWZ does not have much of an understanding of what "groupware" is. Sure, the workflow and process management stuff he was talking about is very boring and only interesting to middle managers, but groupware covers so much more than that. Any system that lets users connect and collaborate, that lets them do what they do best as a team or as a community, is groupware. Calendar apps are groupware. Message boards (yes, even Slashdot) are groupware. MySpace is groupware. Groupware is GOOD, and it's thriving more than ever now that everyone is so well connected!

By the way, the Hula project is pretty much dead at this point. The dev team was sacked as part of the big Novell layoff last November. Dave Camp (formerly of Ximian) is kind of limping it along at this point, so perhaps some interesting bits of code may trickle out in the distant future, but don't expect this project to bear fruit anytime soon. Not that it matters -- even though they claimed that they were "filling an unclaimed spot" in the free software world, there are half a dozen other collaboration platforms out there that solve the same problems admirably. Go check them out.

We can learn from them, too. For example, everyone thinks that our project's FAQ is far more professional and business-like now that we've changed it from a "FAQ" to a "Knowledge Base."

(It's funny. Laugh.)

I get the impression that Oracle is just doing this to screw with MySQL. As many know, MySQL gives you a choice of back end data stores. You can go with MAX (now owned by Oracle), or you can go with Berkeley DB (now owned by Oracle).

As the developer of an application that uses Berkeley DB for all of its data stores, I am more than a little concerned about this. Does Oracle see any actual value in Sleepycat, or are they just doing this to shut them down?

Ditto what athos-mn is saying here.

I am a programmer, and I've occasionally looked over the Citadel code. It's not a hodge-podge at all... it's reasonably well designed to handle a variety of protocols, to include its own proprietary protocol, using a kind of plug-in architecture. Frankly, although I don't generally like C code, I find this code is very well thought out.

Furthermore, it consolidates your services to two executables (the Citadel server and the web interface server), rather than the several you'd otherwise have if you tried to cobble something together yourself (smtp, pop3, imap, something proprietary, and perhaps an html server like apache with whatever mods you'd need thereafter).

As a backend solution, it's probably the finest offering available for open source software. It's absurdly easy to maintain, easy to update, easy to install (http://easyinstall.citadel.org/ and easy to back up or restore (copy the database files, even while Citadel is running, then copy the database logs), and the Citadel folks take problems seriously.

I wonder if the original poster could kindly expand on that hodge-podge comment... I know that the folks who work on Citadel take the issue very seriously, and would love to understand what problems someone may be having with it. From what I've seen of their reaction to people's issues in the support forum on http://uncensored.citadel.org/ they take their offering very seriously, so I'm sure they'd love to more clearly understand any issues you might be having with it.

Admittedly, there still isn't a really great front-end that takes advantage of all of Citadel's abilities. The Citadel team has opted to focus more on developing the WebCit interface to help deal with this problem, as I understand it. The team has tried working with some others towards a client-side solution, but those efforts have not quite taken off yet. Still, I think there's some serious effort underway to make everything work more smoothly, they're just not quite there yet.

Ditto what athos-mn is saying here.

I am a programmer, and I've occasionally looked over the Citadel code. It's not a hodge-podge at all... it's reasonably well designed to handle a variety of protocols, to include its own proprietary protocol, using a kind of plug-in architecture. Frankly, although I don't generally like C code, I find this code is very well thought out.

Furthermore, it consolidates your services to two executables (the Citadel server and the web interface server), rather than the several you'd otherwise have if you tried to cobble something together yourself (smtp, pop3, imap, something proprietary, and perhaps an html server like apache with whatever mods you'd need thereafter).

As a backend solution, it's probably the finest offering available for open source software. It's absurdly easy to maintain, easy to update, easy to install (http://easyinstall.citadel.org/ and easy to back up or restore (copy the database files, even while Citadel is running, then copy the database logs), and the Citadel folks take problems seriously.

I wonder if the original poster could kindly expand on that hodge-podge comment... I know that the folks who work on Citadel take the issue very seriously, and would love to understand what problems someone may be having with it. From what I've seen of their reaction to people's issues in the support forum on http://uncensored.citadel.org/ they take their offering very seriously, so I'm sure they'd love to more clearly understand any issues you might be having with it.

Admittedly, there still isn't a really great front-end that takes advantage of all of Citadel's abilities. The Citadel team has opted to focus more on developing the WebCit interface to help deal with this problem, as I understand it. The team has tried working with some others towards a client-side solution, but those efforts have not quite taken off yet. Still, I think there's some serious effort underway to make everything work more smoothly, they're just not quite there yet.

I'm no programmer, so I can't addressed the "cobbled-together" comment, but from an administrative point-of-view, I must disagree.

I've never had an easier installation of such a program. Likewise, updating is just as easy. The telnet interface takes its root from the 300-baud days, and isn't necessary for it to work - it's no more or less secure than anything that uses telnet (which is to say, not secure). However, there's ssh and its own text client (which is quite nice) to get around that.

Mod parent down. It expressly mentions using ssh in the faq: http://www.citadel.org/index.php?option=com_conten t&task=view&id=37&Itemid=38

AJAX based drag-and-drop email is becoming commonplace now. At this point it's a "must have" feature, and any web based email program that doesn't have it is going to look as if it hasn't been updated since 2004 :)

Yahoo and MSN both have it now. Even the software that drives private email systems has it now. You've probably seen the screenshots for Roundcube, and you've probably seen the screenshots and swf-demos of systems like Citadel and Zimbra.

The point is, Google was the big trailblazer here, but at this point, everyone is now on that trail. The bar has been raised and rich AJAX webmail has quickly gone past "innovative" and is now "an expectation." Meanwhile, Google is probably busy cooking up the Next Big Thing. We hope. :)

AJAX based drag-and-drop email is becoming commonplace now. At this point it's a "must have" feature, and any web based email program that doesn't have it is going to look as if it hasn't been updated since 2004 :)

Yahoo and MSN both have it now. Even the software that drives private email systems has it now. You've probably seen the screenshots for Roundcube, and you've probably seen the screenshots and swf-demos of systems like Citadel and Zimbra.

The point is, Google was the big trailblazer here, but at this point, everyone is now on that trail. The bar has been raised and rich AJAX webmail has quickly gone past "innovative" and is now "an expectation." Meanwhile, Google is probably busy cooking up the Next Big Thing. We hope. :)

Citadel + WebCit, Aethera or some other clients.

You can create a Calendar room accessible by everyone (or acl'ed as you wish) and people can edit as they wish, as a plus it can handle your mail, among other things. If you want to have a play with WebCit, log onto Uncensored BBS or one of the others.

Disclaimer: I'm to blame for the upcoming NNTP implementation in Citadel, along with a patch to use Bogofilter, and the token Australian node on the "IGnet".

Citadel + WebCit, Aethera or some other clients.

You can create a Calendar room accessible by everyone (or acl'ed as you wish) and people can edit as they wish, as a plus it can handle your mail, among other things. If you want to have a play with WebCit, log onto Uncensored BBS or one of the others.

Disclaimer: I'm to blame for the upcoming NNTP implementation in Citadel, along with a patch to use Bogofilter, and the token Australian node on the "IGnet".

Citadel + WebCit, Aethera or some other clients.

You can create a Calendar room accessible by everyone (or acl'ed as you wish) and people can edit as they wish, as a plus it can handle your mail, among other things. If you want to have a play with WebCit, log onto Uncensored BBS or one of the others.

Disclaimer: I'm to blame for the upcoming NNTP implementation in Citadel, along with a patch to use Bogofilter, and the token Australian node on the "IGnet".

Citadel + WebCit, Aethera or some other clients.

You can create a Calendar room accessible by everyone (or acl'ed as you wish) and people can edit as they wish, as a plus it can handle your mail, among other things. If you want to have a play with WebCit, log onto Uncensored BBS or one of the others.

Disclaimer: I'm to blame for the upcoming NNTP implementation in Citadel, along with a patch to use Bogofilter, and the token Australian node on the "IGnet".

Ideally, I would like to see this fancy new combined software package contain support for either SyncML or GroupDAV. It would be nice to connect to open source calendar servers, using a sync server like Sync4J or even natively on standards-compliant calendar servers.

There are some people out there who might have been led to believe that the fancy AJAX applications currently being built using Ruby on Rails actually require RoR for that degree of rich functionality. Fortunately, this is not true. The AJAX library is called script.aculo.us and it is available as a standalone JavaScript library.

It can be used in any language, or even from static web pages. Heck, I practice the unorthodox style of developing web apps in C and I'm using it too!

- Server-side sorting so that all messages don't need to be downloaded in order to view, say, the 15 newest.
- Special folder support, such as Junk, Sent, Trash, etc. Currently send mail just goes off into the ether.

In that case you might want to check out Citadel, which is a complete self-contained mail system with a nice web interface. It has both of those features, plus a number of tightly integrated groupware features.

It's not for you if you have an existing imap backend that you want to keep, but if you want a complete system it's very easy to install and has a lot of functionality. The two-pane mail view is ajax-powered, for example.

This discussion has prompted me to look into other apps... anyone use Citadel? Looks extremely cool.