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German Government Commissions KDE Groupware System
tankengine writes "The German government has ordered a full-blown open-source groupware solution for KDE, to be delivered by the end of this year. It will consist of a server made of standard OSS components (Apache, Postfix, LDAP, etc) called Kolab, and a KDE client. The contractors are aiming for functional equivalence to MS Exchange and Outlook 2000."
My first reaction what that they're reinventing the wheel. Then I saw that they're going to be using and extending many current KDE components. *IF* the KDE teams takes these changes/modifications and uses them to build a new base, great. If, however, this becomes essentially a fork of current Kmail, Korganizer, etc., I don't see this as a good thing.
And yeah, why not take Aethera and build on that - it's already more integrated with itself and other things, and I'm sure the Kompany could have used a nice gov't contract just as much as the team that got it (maybe moreso).
creation science book
Look at the history of cars and paved roads for example. Once there was enough cars on the road, the need for well paved roads became a public utility. Same is true for gas, water and electricity. Once it starts going that way, people's tolerance for non-standard ways becomes a huge issue.
then again, I could be smoking crack and this is just more PR bs.
There's something about the Germans that makes them good at software engineering, in fact any type of engineering. Of the open source projects I've seen, some of the best ones have been German. They should make a good job of this.
I've been thinking that the Mozilla project should do something like this. They have the resources to handle an Exchange replacement. Imagine "Mozilla Server" which is a single-install replacement for Exchange/IIS; it uses existing OSS components like Apache but ties them together and simplifies configuration. The Mozilla client would be very well integrated into the server, able to access web pages, email, and newsgroups, as well as LDAP contacts, scheduling, and other groupware features.
Of course since the source and the standards are both open, many other clients would be able to access the data as well. But I think Mozilla/Netscape is enough of a force in the OSS world to set the standard for a project like this. I'm not sure KDE is.
From the kroupware koncept:
...
"ProFTPD offers good security features such as change root environment and a fine granular access configuration.
It's only functionality on the Kolab server is the legacy mode to enable Windows clients to publish their free-busy lists via anonymous FTP on the server."
Anonymous ftp access? Kiddies, start your pub-scanners!
You'd think komputer konsultants kould kode up a more sekure solution.
They do say its disabled by default, but since we all know there will be "legacy" systems around for years, they'll have plenty of wide-open boxes. Why FTP anyways?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
As others have mentioned, the Bynari connector will be needed for windows access. This sucks. I mean seriously. Bynari is bad enough that nearly nobody is using even now to do groupware, HENCE THE DAMNED PROJECT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I would much rather just have a seperate application, nearly exactly like the KDE client, ported to windows. It will/would hopefully have an outlook importer (not hard, I can offer services in that regard), but it should not be outlook. If it looks and acts just like the KDE version, then it'll be much easier to move users over to *nix after they've used it elsewhere.
About a year ago, I decided not to use "closed" and the word "standard" together anymore.
"Closed specification" versus "Open Standard". That's what I use now. Sounds clearer, better, doesn't it?
>>The Mozilla client would be very well integrated into the server, able to access web pages, email, and newsgroups, as well as LDAP contacts, scheduling, and other groupware features.
>Isn't this how we got into this mess in the first place? The OS needs, IE, which you can't remove, and Outlook requires IE, and everything is integrated into these two applications and their support subsystem. Look at the trouble it's given the Windows users.
True enough, but is that arguement supposed to support the KDE alternative approach? That comment applies equally to KDE, does it not?
Just TRY decoupling Konqueror from KDE... you can't even (EASILY) build KDE without all the theme stuff.
Personally, I think 70% of this is backend, desktop/OS-agnostic stuff... and should be worked out in a desktop-neutral manner. I'm not saying everything would be built with KDE dependencies, but it would not surprise me either.
We really need some cooperation and coordination between KDE & GNOME... I'm not putting forth the "one desktop" concept, but surely we can get cooperation on things like calendaring. If GNOME has a calendaring concept (Ximian's commercial Exchange plugin doesn't count), then all the open source folks should leverage what they have in common.
I managed to implement quite a lot of public folder functionality into IMAP4 folders that different kerberos user groups could subscribe to... it's not undoable, maybe not as easy though.
EOM
I'm not sorry to see that many /.ers can see the economic reasons for one government to stop paying money hand over fist on a continuing basis to a foreign company - a company which, as a result, exerts some degree of power over that government's electronic and information policies. That money isn't on loan - it's gone from that country forever, into the coffers of another country.
In this case, you've got a nation-state building and using something for and by itself - something that will compete with products that private market workers and investors in another country far away are, in some cases, making large fortunes from.
If this is a problem, maybe the American government shouldn't have produced the Internet in the first place. Imagine how much better-off we'd all have been if that had never happened. Or maybe not.
Sorry but a nice hack aint going to cut it for all but the smallest of installations. Exchange as busted as it is has a wonderfull calandering solution that many people love. Once we complete our exchange rollout and the imap/pop3 servers we have now are decommision I plan on running mozilla mail in imap mode for email and outlook for calandering (currently on win2k later on linux with crossover office)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.